


Picosecond

by Glossolalia



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Adultery, Alien Biology, Body Dysphoria, Debauchery, Drinking, F/M, Fingering, Galra Keith (Voltron), Heavy Angst, Jealousy, M/M, Marriage of Convenience, Mutual Pining, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Older Characters, POV Second Person, Politics, Post-Voltron, Recreational Drug Use, Rimming, Self-Denial, Tentacles, Unplanned Pregnancy, Unrequited Love, Xenophilia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-10
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2018-10-02 04:00:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 126,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10209167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glossolalia/pseuds/Glossolalia
Summary: It's been eight years since the fall of the Galra Empire. While most of the Paladins of Voltron have gone their separate ways as friends, it's the Black and Red Paladin who've parted on uncivil terms. At Empress Allura’s side, Shiro is now a married man and father overseeing the birth of the universe's peace times, and Keith, a bounty hunter, is avoiding any association with the newly established Interuniversal Alliance for Planetary Peace.It’s by accident Keith finds himself working alongside the man he's tried to run from.It’s by accident Keith finds himself in the same man's bed.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> We're basically riding this self-indulgent train into an active volcano.

You’re twenty-eight years old, and you’re seated at a bar in an intergalactic hub somewhere a hundred thousand lightyears away from your home planet. You’re twenty-eight years old, and a creature you’re going to safely assume might be female is waggling a single burgundy tentacle in your direction. Because your orifices are delicate, you’re nervous, but it’s been so long since you’ve been laid you’re almost excited. 

Your name is Keith and your Red Paladin armor once made you a celebrity. In its place, your demoted red body suit that shines like latex and matte black riding jacket have morphed you into a civilian.

Your name is Keith and you can’t feel your fingers or toes, but it’s in the emotional sense. It’s in the way you’re hanging by thin, tenuous threads and glancing at your holographic communicator watch, hoping for a call. You’ve been hoping for a call for six years, and while you and the ever elusive He are in a relationship built on Venn diagrams, you’ve somehow managed to write the word ‘hope’ outside the overlapping circles. 

So you hope for a call. A call that will never come. 

“That looks nasty,” Lance says, reappearing from his visit to the restroom. His voice is gruff, ringing with sleep-deprivation, but you’re not doing much better yourself.

He means the drink in front of you, by the way. 

You swipe your fingertips along the shallow crescent-shaped glass’s rim and tap the pink transparent surface beneath it. Pastel blue light appears like a disturbed pond only to warble away in pulsations. Cascading over your shoulders is something comparative to a matching neon. Pidge once explained the differentiating rays to you, but you’ve long since forgotten. This sums up your standard for retention. 

“It’s okay,” you lie and take a quick sip.

The drink is thin green smoke, but it washes over your tongue like a silk sheet. You swallow it down before it solidifies in the middle of your throat and your fingers jolt as if electrocuted. A glaze of silver squares cascade across your vision, but you blink the momentary buzz into oblivion before looking back at Lance who is staring at you unconvinced. Your black Galra ears flick back in aggravation, but you don’t notice. Their movement is more reported myth than cognizant for you. After an ugly meeting with quintessence, they appeared and never disappeared, marking the beginning of both a freshly resolved second puberty and wounding humiliation.

As if those aren’t mutually exclusive or anything.

“I’m not seeing the objective,” Lance finally says, dropping his weight onto the stool beside you. He leans forward and eyes the bartender’s ass. She looks his way and he winks. This earns him a free drink. “I’ve scanned that point of convergence four times now. Name one time Pidge’s technology has let us down in the past two years. I’m betting that bastard merchant ratted us out the minute we stepped out of his shop with the coordinates. Self-righteous shithead valued his throat more than the bullet I’m going to nail between his eyes if I ever see him again.”

“Give it a minute,” you suggest and take another sip. You wipe your mouth with the back of your glove. “Name one time a quintessence dealer has been punctual.”

Lance doesn’t bite back, but he casts a short look over his shoulder. Behind you and him is the rest of the seedy nightclub. Crass bass surges beneath your boots, but the dance floor is far away enough to keep you from feeling suffocated. Hunk once made the anthropological observation that the fact other alien lifeforms like to dance is fascinating and worth studying. Because of this single sentence, every club makes you dwell on Pidge’s cosmic dust revelation. Lifeforms are connected and there’s proof in squalid bars as much as there’s proof in childbirth.

Heavy-handed, maybe. To be fair, you’ve never admitted to being anything else.

“We take out Barzor’s worst and we sleep for a month,” Lance dryly mutters along the rim of his much taller and thinner glass. It’s stained a pale dandelion and its condensation is a violent red. When Lance brings it to his lips, an aromatic citrus scent wafts toward you and you vaguely remember the taste of orange juice.

Orange juice makes you think about mornings at Galaxy Garrison with trays of factory manufactured French toast sticks and puddles of sugary syrup sidled up next to scrambled eggs. You recall hand-split apples on your way to class and a thermos of coffee always topped off by Him in the teachers’ lounge. Technically, He wasn’t a teacher, but He was a higher rank than you and one hell of an instructor be it in a cockpit or hidden behind dorm walls.

You wrinkle your nose, suddenly aggravated by your longing for Earth.

It’s been a decade.

“Or we keep working and put back GAC so we can retire.” 

“If you wanted a retirement plan, then you should’ve taken the job as Altean fleet commander. It’s peacetimes for the universe. You’d be doing a lot better there than out here with me.” 

“You’d be dead without me.”

“Don’t make me your scapegoat, Kogane.” 

You take that hit with grace but consider how Lance is simplifying everything including the name of the ‘fleet’ and title ‘commander.’

Firstly, it’s not Altean. It’s the Interuniversal Alliance for Planetary Peace and experimental in the way it unites regions of the known universe very much in the way you recall the United Nations handling its countries. It was founded by the Altea region, which is headed by Empress Allura, someone you also haven’t exchanged words with in going on six years. While these regions possess autonomous militaries, the IAPP regulates its own esteemed panel devoted to overseeing all known armed forces. You were invited to administer the universe’s piloting policies and ethics, but for undisclosed reasons, politely refused before asking Lance if he needed a partner.

There are reasons, you insisted when begged to reconsider.

It was chalked up to you wanting to find your family, which was something you claimed you wanted to do both before and after discovering your Galra heritage. With the dispersing of the Blade of Marmora, this became a glaring task involving stockrooms of red tape and an investigation you realized, after shoving your sword through Lotor's jugular, would be tremendous. Much like during that final twist of the blade, you’ve been repeatedly surprised by how tired you are. You’re not even thirty, but the aches in you extend far beyond your prosthetic leg. 

“The ship needs an overhaul,” you try again. “That’s a lot of GAC.” 

“What we need is a new ship.”

“How many times do I have to tell you a new ship would make us a target? We need the secondhand shell. If we put back enough, then we can visit Hunk’s shop in IOK-1 and finally refurbish it.”

Hunk’s name makes Lance’s shoulders tense, but you pretend not to notice. Even if you wanted to say something, Lance beats you to the punch. “We could use our pensions and do it next week.”

“You know tapping into those would mean visiting the Altea region. Allura would catch wind and she’d hold us there until she could wedge us into the IAPP uniforms herself. She barely took no for an answer last time. I’d rather put back the money and avoid losing six spicolian movements to her goading – ”

Because not even God wants to hear your excuses, a violent metallic tearing reverberates through the club. A choir of terrified screams follows, and with an angry roar, a bubble of heat rushes against you, sending your hair forward and ears high. Effectively silenced, chemical smoke pours out around your ankles in bright purple plumes and it instantly burns your eyes, sending water streaming down your cheeks and your lungs toward the planet’s core.

The both of you instantly rise to your feet.

You and Lance knock back the rest of your drinks and thoughtlessly reach up, smacking palms together and cupping hands with determined looks. You flash him a smirk as your Bayard manifests in your empty palm, and after returning the expression with his own smug grin, Lance frees your hand. He spins on his heel and sprints toward the source of the explosion with a drop of his blue-tinted wraparound glasses. Blaster appearing in his palms, the sniper guides you through the smoke and toward the source of the explosion. To save your eyes, you smoothly lower your red tinted lenses. The map you and Pidge built together runs across your vision with AI suggestions. Lance has marked a path to every potential exit, not including the sudden hole in the wall.

The Altean language flashes across your screen, opening as a circle and spinning into a pinpoint on the map. “The hover stairs in the right corridor are still open. Let security milk the distraction and we can go upstairs and take out Barzor’s suppliers before anyone catches wind. Get ready to call the ship to the nearest window so we can transport their stock and get the hell out of here. Let’s make this as clean as possible."

“Copy.”

Lance careens toward a flashing walkway that’s still synchronized with music that’s suddenly mocking. He hurdles over a fallen chair, prompting you to do the same, and there’s the fleeting thought where you wish you weren’t desensitized to so much of the carnage. Bodies are at your feet, squishy innards steaming, and you leap across the forms as if they’re objects. They’re lives. They _were_ lives. 

Your footsteps still inside the corridor and Lance screeches to a halt when he no longer hears you. It’s empty, eerily quiet, and while you anticipated this, your ears twitch in uncertainty.

Lance looks over his shoulder. “What’s the story, morning glory?” 

“Something’s off,” you say.

He tries not to laugh, but it comes out as a cough. “Those Galra senses of yours are tingling.”

Keen instincts were a part of your second puberty. In your strong opinion, and strong opinions are all you can have about said second puberty, it was the only useful thing to come out of an unfortunate situation.

“There’s a chance they already know we’re on our way.”

“Awesome,” Lance mutters, scowling and narrowing his focus. “Nothing makes me happier than the surprise birthday being ruined.”

“Can’t do anything about it now,” you breathe and sprint past him toward the stairs. You flippantly spin the Bayard sword, not bothering to cut him a glance. Lance laughs, and for some reason, you smile.

It’s a short sprint up a flight of stairs. The blue crystal steps bob beneath your weight, slowing the travel, and the sheer splendor of the back hall doesn’t bode well with the tacky bar. At the top, you wait for Lance and then run forward together, continuing to read the map as frosted automatic doors rail through your peripherals. You turn a corner, and the silence is suddenly shredded in half by the presence of six guards. Three of them aren't human, and Lance rips lasers through their chests before letting you finish the rest with the blade. There’s a momentary expulsion of blood, a chorus of gags, but you don’t give yourself time to look at the dead weight collected at your feet. You’ve noticed a bigger problem.

Beside the final door, there’s a keypad with not ten numbers but a colorful system of triangle-shaped buttons that befuddle you quicker than your first exposure to an Altean book.

“Punch it,” Lance says, sounding impatient.

“Good idea." 

You crunch your knuckles against the keypad and the sparks burn your gloves, but it barely zaps your skin. There’s a daunting pause and you turn your gaze to send Lance a sheepish frown. It’s interrupted by a buzz, a stuttering beep and then a panicked series of clicks. You step back, and as Lance inhales a “yikes,” the automatic door juts open with a shaky tug. The tug wheezes at the end, and you bite through a laugh. Lance laughs for you.

There’s a strained gurgle from the other side of the door that’s revealed an open office space. The desk is black and soft with a velvet sheen, and in the same fashion as the stairs, it levitates. The only difference is that it’s eerily still, but that’s the entire room, even after the gurgle. Framing the desk is a pair of green crystal lumps that you suppose could be making the same aesthetic sense as plants in a corporate boardroom. Once again, you’re startled by the universe’s consistent patterns and how ‘the same cosmic dust’ rings true within a boring standard.

Lance drops his blaster to his side and slants a hip. “Where did that come from?” 

Like patterns, the universe also has the same sense of humor. As if on cue, an alien body with crystal facets along its limbs drops from the ceiling. It lands with a sickening clunk, and you slowly lower your Bayard, pursing lips and hiking an eyebrow. You and Lance tilt your heads back at the same time and are greeted by the sight of six black boots confidently falling from the ceiling. Three people land before you with catlike finesse, all three of varying body shapes and sizes, but the one in the middle is strikingly human. They’re wearing black piloting suits that fit like cling wrap and knee-high boots to match. Slashed across their chests is a blue and white insignia that falls into a V-shape. It cradles the IAPP crest of a half-moon mirroring a female lion’s profile.

“Oh, Christ,” Lance whispers.

Deciding Christ wouldn’t do this, you frown.

They’re wearing sleek helmets you and Lance once drunkenly laughed at, referring to them as Power Ranger helmets. Lance had hit his knees and shed tears, and you had rolled onto your side and wheezed yourself into a coughing fit.

“Keith,” a distorted voice says. It comes from the center being. The human-esque one.

You hear Lance snerk. You try not to match him.

“Lance,” the voice says in response, and Lance’s expression plummets.

“We had this,” you say, biting back. Your eyes flit down to the unconscious body between you and the IAPP soldiers, and after a long moment, you recognize Barzor. Blood running cold through your veins, your nostrils flare. Not only is this your money, but your personal vendetta against the IAPP is bleeding through. “We _had_ this.”

“Barzor is both dangerous and a vital part of the IAPP’s investigation in illegal quintessence importation.”

“The IAPP sure doesn’t believe in unemployment notices.” You shift your weight, unimpressed. Conscious of the fact you’re posturing, your frown somehow deepens. It is so deep it's testing the laws of your muscular dimension. “How were we supposed to know Barzor was a part of your investigation? You’ve let us handle this for six years and now you’re staking claim? Sounds to me like you found an untagged opportunity.”

 “The Department of Quintessence Importing and Enterprise Proceedings doesn’t have an authorized method for operating with vigilantes.”

“I don’t think vigilantes get paid,” Lance grumbles, having adopted the Space Cowboy title with an unprecedented air of seriousness.

“Bounty hunters then,” the humanoid corrects, sounding condescending but light enough for you to keep from rolling your eyes.

“You pretty much just stole 500,000 GAC.”

“As a paladin of Voltron, financial gain could be the least of your worries.”

You narrow in on the _could_. The knowingness is a red flag.

“Identify yourselves,” you say, unwilling to compromise.

Before anyone can give you an answer, a shift occurs between your feet. You glance down and Barzor’s gem face catches the light, sending a flash of yellow diamond toward your growing pupils. There’s a blaster in his hand, and the instinct to lash out is as immediate as it is impossible. Lance shifts to raise his gun, but the humanoid in front of you reacts even faster than the sharp shoot. In his palm, a sword manifests with a hail of glitter, and as soon as you see its black blade and dramatic curve, blood drains from the tips of your fingers. 

The blade drops like a guillotine. A blue goo drains from the beheading, and the surrounding IAPP officers step back in surprise. Under any other circumstances, this merciless kill would’ve been avoided. There are other ways to detain a pointed gun, but this leader has no patience whatsoever. You set your jaw into a hard line no matter how thankful you are for avoiding a bullet, but it’s mostly because this kill ends your right to any bounty. The IAPP’s hands have dragged across the body. A tumbleweed rolls through your bank account.

Lance crosses his arms and continues to stare down the middle man. “Real classy.” 

“Identify yourselves,” you repeat.

The emotion in your voice breaks the mood. Emotion being a specific anger you’ve silenced through your abstract life experiences. It’s a callback to a different definition of Keith Kogane. One that’s changed as language exists like a living organism. You’ve traipsed through many versions of yourself, but this is the one that is leaned forward and nineteen, ready to barrel toward someone if they dare use the wrong inflection.

After a hesitant pause, the human lets his sword dissipate and reaches for the sides of his helmet. You watch his chest deflate with a sigh, and suddenly, he tugs upward with a hard yank that whirrs as protective seals disengage. It’s incredible how the shape of the man’s chin is all you need to recognize him. Your throat seals, and it's suddenly hard to see.

Lance laughs in disbelief. The noise is a shocked bray. 

“Keith and Lance,” Shiro says. “It’s been a while.”

Shards rip through your chest, and you slide your tongue along the roof of your mouth. It’s not your fault your eyes narrow in on the man. After all, the last words you said to him were – “I’m never doing this again.”

He’s aged well. Mid-thirties and in what many would consider to be a human being’s prime, Shiro stands regal in his IAPP suit, but the regality doesn’t come from him undeserved. During the roughest stint of diplomacy following the fall of the Galra Empire, Shiro married into royalty and found himself in a place of soft stress that better suited him than leading Voltron. He wears the demeanor with righted shoulders and a confidently set mouth. Full lips on the cusp of twisting to the side in passive, but still vaguely sad, amusement, you’re somehow charmed after all these years.

“Six years.” 

Six years to the day, actually. 

He runs his fingers through his hair with a knowing exhale, and then smiles.

The white in his hair has snaked back toward the center of his crown, but the fringe fluffs upward. The threads are thick, showing no signs of thinning, and somehow, the tousled look you assume is due to long exposure to foreign climate is appealing. In short, he looks younger, more relaxed, and the stormy bleakness that used to propel itself in and out of his eyes has cleared. You can’t remember him ever looking this way while you were teammates on Castle Lion. Maybe at the Garrison, but those memories are distant, blurry.

Shiro tucks his helmet beneath his arm and ignores the bleeding body at his feet. “I had heard this is what you’ve been up to, but I didn’t think you’d gone so far underground you were chasing people like Barzor.”

“It’s where the money’s at,” Lance answers for you.

“Neither one of you have any reason to be worried about money.” 

“It’s for the greater good,” you say, and there’s a hint of raillery there Shiro catches onto. His eyes soften even more, and he clamps his lips together to keep from laughing. You watch his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows the noise, and you try not to find satisfaction in his reaction. Momentarily, your eyes avert and you’re ashamed that it’s been six years yet there you are with the natural inclination to reference a joke so old it could be called ancient.   

“Greater good, huh?” Shiro says with an arched eyebrow, but he swiftly digresses. He looks to his sides. “Eps, Kuyo, this is Keith and Lance. We fought together against the Galra Empire. They’re the Red and Blue Paladins and a pair of my and Commander Allura’s lifelong friends. We’re in good company here.”

You keep your distance but reach out to shake the adjoining officers’ hands. It’s not much of a handshake but more a gripping of wrists. The shake is swift and to the point, but neither one removes his helmet.

“Shiro, my man,” Lance says and reaches for Shiro’s hand. Their palms cup and they suddenly hug. It’s quick and to the point, but Lance’s smile glows. “How’s the Altea Region treating you? We were just talking about making a visit.”

“Were you?” Shiro asks in disbelief. “I thought you’d exiled yourselves.” 

“Our job doesn’t take us there too often. You know, bad guys don’t want to be anywhere near Allura’s hawk eyes. And then with you there? They’re just asking to get flipped inside out. It’s bad business.”

“Makes sense,” Shiro lies. 

You know there’s no reason for anyone to avoid another person for six years, especially considering the technology you and Lance fly with. It’s purely avoidance, and Shiro understands this firsthand. He’s putting on airs, and you’re relieved to see that some things haven’t changed. His disposition possesses the old uniformity you know best. 

“You killed your resource,” you say and crouch down beside the body. You don’t want to continue down this topic, and you know time is short anyway.

Shiro clears his throat and flicks his eyes to the side. He looks guilty, caught red-handed. “It was a knee-jerk response. Your suit doesn’t have armor.”

Not responding to that implication, you cut Shiro a look and continue to drink in his appearance. His presence is so surreal that after a handful of seconds, you’re forced to look back down. You reach out and hold the alien by his hard cheeks and turn his face toward the light. There’s a beep from Barzor’s pocket and you jerk open his jacket with an annoyed exhale, feeling around the purple glowing seams for the beeping’s source. There’s a hard lump inside a pocket, and you fish out a compact-shaped communicator with a touchscreen keypad on top. Deciding you can’t punch this one, you slowly stand and begin to dissect the technology’s seams.

“I’ve never seen this model before,” you say and begin to tap the symbols on top. Immediately, red flashes across the top and you’re locked out. You grumble under your breath.

Shiro offers his palm. You reluctantly drop the tech into his hand before feigning interest in the room’s décor. It almost doesn’t look like you’re scouting for something that isn’t named Shiro.

“Pidge could open this for us,” Shiro says as he turns it in his hands. “When did you two last see Pidge?” 

Lance snorts and good-naturedly sighs. “Two years ago, but she still talks to us maybe once a week. Same with Hunk. He’s walked us through a bunch of repairs lately. You should’ve seen us stranded near a minefield of black holes about three spicolian movements ago. I’m surprised we didn’t bite the dust right there.”

“Reassuring,” Shiro says, trying to humor him. “You two have always known how to cut it close.”

He looks your way, expecting something more, but you have nothing to give but a disinterested stare. He meets it with something vaguely meaningful. If you didn’t know better, then you might’ve called it ‘hurt.’

Lance tosses an arm around your shoulders and tugs you close with a playful jerk. You cut him a side look for it. The annoyance drifts into an easy smile. “What can we say? We’re the best worst space rangers the universe has to offer. Sharp Shooter and Gut Spiller still raising hell ten years later.”

Shiro eyes the way you shift toward Lance, your body naturally gravitating toward someone you’ve called a best friend for going on a decade. You two have been sleeping in the same room for years, and while you’re partially Galra, the human need for comradery is honest. More than once, Lance has touched you, and more than once, you’ve touched Lance. Always in the privacy of the ship, you’re sometimes bewildered by how your interpersonal relationships have evolved. You never thought, of all people, Lance would be the one you followed through hell.

“Closer than ever,” Shiro says and pushes back his bangs. He’s nervous. You can still read the man, even after all the years and attempts to _forget_.

“You should see the bullet hole in Keith’s chest. He took one for me. Know what we call that? Character development.”

Shiro’s brow creeps upward. “Sounds like you two have stories.”

 _Don’t look so uncomfortable_ , you think and press your hip to Lance’s. Lance doesn’t tense and reaches to ruffle the back of your head. He scratches behind one of your ears.  _I’m missing a goddamn leg because of you._

You also think about love and cosmic inflation. You think about how the universe rapidly expanded after the Planck Epoch, and when you look at Shiro, the sentiment rings true for your relationship. Before Kerberos, you two were the early universe where everything was a single fundamental force, but afterward and on into Voltron, the two of you went off with a violent bang and began to rapidly expand. You drifted apart, stars manifesting between you and the weight of life building more and more distance. It wasn’t long after such stellar formation occurred did Shiro begin to question the cessation of cosmos and the ultimate fate of the universe.

The ultimate fate of you both.

You coast through these emotions. Isn’t that what you’ve always done, though? You can’t remember the last time you allowed yourself to investigate the plucking sensation behind your sternum. Invisible hands play your heartstrings like a finely tuned harp, but the music is dulled out for you. You’ve listened to the same song for the majority of your life, but it’s only grown louder and louder with age, deafening you to its poignancy.

“Did you find his stock?” you ask as you pull away from Lance. Walking deeper into the office, you pass the floating desk and stride toward a cabinet. Swiftly, you open the door and glumly stare inside, not finding anything. The commotion downstairs loudens, and in your peripheral vision, you notice your spaceship bobbing in wait outside the window. “There was supposed to be a massive shipment." 

Shiro signals, and without warning, his companions begin to tear apart the room. You and Lance exchange quick looks implying you’re mutually aggravated. As the crystals are jerked from their roots, you reopen the cabinet and gently knock your knuckles against the back panel of the storage space. You’ve been doing this long enough to know that it’s rare someone knows how to hide things worth a damn. More than once, you’ve wished people tried harder. It’d at least make your job more interesting and less systematic.

Shiro’s eyes are scraping your back when he speaks. “That’s what you’re driving?” 

“It keeps us incognito,” you explain, continuing to knock. When there’s nothing hollow, you pull back and begin to smack your palms against the wall. A series of flashing blue and green lights whip past the window, and you know the city’s local police force has arrived. Your nostrils flare and you roughly shove back from the wall. “Lance, let’s go. If we don’t go now, then we’ll have to deal with this region’s chief, and we don’t have time for that.”

Shiro steps in your way. “If you’re caught with us, then you won’t have to answer to anyone.”

You try to careen around him, but Shiro swiftly navigates himself into your path again. The two of you exchange looks, and you’re exasperated by how entitled he still acts around you. There’s no reason, but you suppose the past few years of your life are a void to him and he only has the past to consider. He no longer knows any form of you that isn’t your Red Paladin self. This only enhances your consideration of cosmic inflation.

“Shirogane,” you dully say, “move out of my way. You haven’t caught us doing anything illegal, and if you have, then you’ll have a lot of fun proving it. We need to leave.”

Shiro blinks at the full usage of his surname. He reasserts himself, going stoic. “Six years and you’ve barely changed. Don't be stubborn.”

You tilt your head and smoothly step around him, but with your body facing him the whole time. It’s a curve of self that is menacing with flicked back ears and your narrowed Galra glare. “Six years and you’re still wrong about me.”

Lance whistles, but when you look his way, he seems hesitant to open the window so you two can leap onto your vehicle and leave. He doesn’t meet your eye and lifts his palms. “Hear me out." 

“Don’t,” you snap. “We _have_ to go.”

“We have a fortune sitting in the Altea Region, Keith. I’ve done a lot for you. I’ll keep doing a lot for you, and I’m going to do that now by saying I’m staying and you should too, man.”

This would feel like a betrayal if you didn’t know he was being sensible. You don’t want sensible, though. You want to be as far away from Takashi Shirogane as you can be and forget this freak accident of a meeting that you’ve spent the past six years silently aching for but also running from like your life depended on it. It’s dramatic, but maybe in the context you have, your life did depend on it. If not your life, then your bare minimum happiness, which honestly, is all you’ve been able to cling onto for the longest time.

Shiro shifts his stare onto Lance. “Keith, you should listen to him.”

You’re being stubborn when you stride toward the aged window and roundhouse kick the glass into a shatter. The sheer force you use rushes up your calf, but you ignore the ache clinging to your ankle. You look over your shoulder at Lance, and a rush of bitter wind throws itself at you, causing one of your ears to twitch.

“Final call, Lance. I’ll leave you here.”

It’s supposed to be a dramatic exit on your part, but from your front, there’s a sudden rush that reminds you of hail slamming against a car hood. You whip your face forward, and there you see the green mini ships that just flashed by. They’re gunning down your ship. For no apparent reason, they’re destroying it before your eyes, and it occurs to you there’s nothing that can be done.

There’s the possibility they attempted to open a line of conversation with the bridge, but because no one was there, all threats were ignored. That said, you can’t imagine that being considered hostile enough.

“Incredible,” you whisper.

To continue with the theme of universal consistencies, it’s apparent karma doesn’t prefer any one place in the universe. Eyes slowly lowering into a dulled acceptance, you watch flames contract from within your beloved junk ship, and you run your fingers through your hair. Your exasperation is a trigger. The left set of thrusters give birth to an emerald explosion of fuel-laden flames, and with a momentary unbalancing tilt, the ship staggers in the air. There is a metaphorical gasp when the ship jerks forward, and with continued blank emotion, you watch what you’ve referred to as your ‘home’ for the past several years take a comical plummet toward the ground.

Lance slowly approaches your side and stares onward. He inhales. His next words are about as glum and dead as your demeanor. “Guess we’re hanging with the IAPP.”

“We could call a friend.” You realize neither one of you has friends. Lance's most recent relationship fluke cemented that. “Never mind.”

“Yeehaw,” Lance weakly mutters, and then in an attempt to lighten the mood, elbows your ribs. He manages to smile. It’s forced. “Wait. That’s your line.”


	2. Chapter 2

You're thirty-two years old, and you're standing on the bridge of a custom spacecraft a hundred thousand lightyears away from your home planet. You're thirty-two years old, and a man you're going to safely assume hates the very foundation of your humanity refuses to look your way. Because you're consistently an emotional abortion, you're nervous, but it's been so long since you've seen him, you're overwrought by his blistering presence.

Your name is Shiro and your Black Paladin armor once made you a celebrity. In its place, your promoted bodysuit that denies light like black holes has morphed you into a war hero.

Your name is Shiro and you can't feel your fingers or toes, but it's in the emotional sense. It's in the way you're hanging by thin, tenuous threads and glancing at the back of the man's head, hoping for a word. You've been hoping for a word for six years, and while you and the ever elusive He are in a relationship built on Venn diagrams, you've somehow managed to write the word 'hope' outside the overlapping circles.

So you hope for a word. A word you can no longer order out of him.

"Empress Allura hasn't missed me too much?" Lance asks, winking and smacking his palm square between your shoulder blades. You arch an eyebrow and smile. Even after all these years, you know Lance well enough to understand he's harmless no matter how rugged his facial hair becomes. Anyway, last you heard, his divorce still hadn't been finalized. You know there are loaded reasons, but you figure he'll explain himself after a drink or two. It's never been in your nature to push for personal details. "You know, Shiro. You look pretty damn good for someone who's been through hell three times over."

"The IAPP is a vacation compared to Voltron and the Galra."

"Fighting off drug lords is what you're calling a vacation now?" Lance snorts but crosses his arms and shrugs with an appreciative smile. "I thought it was kind of weird for an emperor to be playing cop. Then again, debriefings probably get boring after a while. It's why I had to pack up and do something else. One year in and I was going nuts. I wish I still had my notes from some of those treaty meetings. The comics I drew were museum worthy."

"This was a special circumstance. I normally don't assist on the field."

Lance cuts you a short once over. You've always hated how his aloofness masks his perceptiveness. It catches you off guard every time. It doesn't help his next words are careful and too knowing. "Cool coincidence, huh?"

Already, you sense the man could be different.

You can only imagine what Keith has said to him.

"Yeah," you carefully say and fight the urge to look at Keith's turned back. "It's good timing. Hunk and Pidge are visiting at the end of the week, too."

Lance sucks air through his teeth. A bitter laugh highlights his blunt reaction, and you know you've delivered a subtle blow to match his speculation. Neither one of you say anything for several seconds, but this is because you're both aware you goaded Keith into returning to the capital together. The pause lingers until Lance pounds his fist against his chest and looks onward, frown slowly manifesting before your eyes.

"Everyone's going to be together then."

You thought about this the second Keith and Lance stepped aboard your ship. "That's how it looks."

"It's been six years," Lance says and anxiously musses the sides of his hair. "Shit. Time's flown, hasn't it?"

"Sometimes I feel like you and Keith left last week," you say with a lopsided smile. For reasons unknown to you, this calms Lance. You reach for his shoulder, and like old times, he leans into it with a proud slump. You both choose to forget about your digs into one another, and you even decide to nurse his self-esteem. "You've really filled out. I almost didn't recognize you."

"Testosterone and running after ugly baddies do wonders. I look good. I know." He shoots you a flirty smirk, and you're not sure how to take it, but it makes you arch an eyebrow and smile. You drop your hand and clear the laughter from your throat.

"How far are we from Neoteric Altea?" Keith asks from the opposite end of the bridge. It's the first thing he's said since realizing his destitution, and his words are as dull as one would expect. Lance looks at you, waiting, and you inhale at the signal before briskly stepping forward. Rather than linger, you act by reaching forward to drag your fingers along the black control deck with its illuminated Altean symbols. You type a shortcode that summons a periwinkle holographic map. It immediately rushes through the both of you, and the region you're flying through appears in the center of the room, climbing from floor to ceiling. You turn and Keith follows suit.

"New Altea," you correct, "is only a couple vargas away. We're flying into the capital but using the royal port. We shouldn't be delayed by flight traffic."

"Where will we be staying?" he asks and turns to look at you, arms crossed over his chest and spine straight. The posture is defensive, but his stare isn't as harsh as you anticipated.

There's an awkward gap in your answer. Years later, you're still startled by how striking the man is, even with his collection of deep scars and a permanently split bottom lip you remember catching blood from. His face is a perfect V-shape created by high cheekbones and a thin, delicate chin, but it's the sharpness of his almond eyes that balances the initial softness. Keith's aptitude for throwing daggers with a glance makes his glares dangerous and his pained stares even more so. Be the color mauve or gold clay, they've forever drawn you in, enforced your unending orbit around his person and realigned your constellations. Once, long ago, you even explained how the contrast of his opal casing and dark hair made him stand out like a half-realized eclipse.

At the compliment, he had shifted his eyes from yours and looked to the ground, barely concealing his small smile. He'd reminded you that you were Takashi Shirogane and the Black Lion was waiting in the hangar like an impatient mother. In short, he'd told you to do your job, and you'd told him it was hard not to stargaze in space.

With these dollish features in mind, you acknowledge his wide shoulders and a body built from years of hard-won war that didn't begin on the battlefield but before his stomach had hair. He's mostly legs and a thin waist but with definition, and for you, this defined frame is lewd. It's subtly different though you remember it well. You've muffled the memories like grass beneath autumn leaves, but leaves are a temporary fixture in seasonal cycles. Hidden or not, the roots continue to live inside you. You never ripped him from your soil.

"The palace was finished last year. We followed the original blueprints you and the others helped design. It was the right thing to do since each one of us donated part of our pensions. On record, the capital is your city of residency."

"I didn't know that," Keith says, not bothering to hide his melancholy. He reaches up and traces the flight path with his index finger, eventually landing on your destination. "What's the population now?"

"Two million. The majority are refugees, including Galra."

Keith's expression softens, but he turns away from you. "It was 100,000 when we left."

"Allura and I have pulled several sleepless nights."

Until recently, New Altea was an unclaimed planet.

An emerald amongst the hopeless carnage, it was entirely void of intellectual life upon discovery. During a mission some ten years ago, you and Allura stumbled across the terrestrial mass and proceeded to hide the Black Lion from an oncoming Galra fleet. After exploring for the sake of boredom and realizing its natural resources, the two of you came to the conclusion that the unmarked planet could someday be a place to return to.

While similar to Earth in terms of atmosphere and climate separation, the northern hemisphere possesses a consistently high humidity point lush with flora and fauna. In the upper-most part of that hemisphere, Allura decided to begin building her city for those who had been strung across the universe while fleeing Galran oppression. Though still under massive construction and orienting its humanitarian codes and policies, the temporary ones have cultivated the seedlings for utopian ideals. These ideals are for Allura to implement and you to enforce.

Originally, it was a massive undertaking intended for all of the Paladins to oversee. You tell yourself that life happened and will always happen, but you blame yourself.

"It's a city now. There are still camps, but we're doing our best to provide resources and build up. The IAPP is looking to establish multiple refugee planets across the universe. You're not going to recognize the capital."

"Two million in six years," Lance murmurs and migrates toward Keith. He zooms in on the planet and passively checks the weather. "Once we get settled, you'll never see me again. That black sand beach is already calling to me. Might put a house there if I can get Allura to approve it. I know you guys said we'd probably never be able to have residencies outside the palace walls, but maybe we can make it a long-term vacation spot."

"It's a security measure," you remind him. "You're the Blue Paladin."

"I don't read the tabloids. Sometimes I forget we saved the universe."

Keith absentmindedly checks the surrounding planets. All are drained or deserted. "I don't think most intellectual lifeforms have the ability to conceptualize what it means to save a universe."

You shrug and slowly exhale. "Zarkon sure had the capacity to imagine conquering it."

"It's one thing to conquer. It's another to save," Keith reminds you. "Galra perception and instinct makes it easy to exploit the ideology of conquering and taking. Preserving a peaceful and fair existence is polarizing. Anyway, I don't think it's a mystery at this point that it's harder to be good than bad. Take that already difficult ethical choice and put the weight of all life onto it, and it's suddenly easier to pretend you didn't have to make those hard choices."

"Is this what you tell people when they ask why you're not a part of the IAPP?" you ask, tone careful. "That you're pretending you didn't kill Prince Lotor because it's hard to stomach its positive impact?"

Much to your annoyance, Lance sees Keith's ears flick back and answers for him. "Not all of us were ready to go right into another big undertaking. The IAPP was overwhelming from the start. We had unfinished business."

You never look away from Keith. You want him to say something on the matter, but not just for your sake. You're attempting to subtly devise a reason Allura will be able to stomach when Keith finally has to explain why it took him six years to return for his pension. She's insightful. She's now a genius at interpretation. The last thing you want is for her to read Keith's screaming body language and realize exactly what cleaved the Paladins.

"I still do," Keith adds, eyes narrowing in on you.

You don't have time for this. As you've gotten older, your patience has waned significantly. Not to mention, you're landing in two hours and you need Keith to relax. "The Blade of Marmora has an encampment."

He tenses, but one of his ears perks in keen interest. "In plain sight?"

"Not to the degree you're probably thinking, but as a Blade member, you have a right to it."

Keith casts his stare from you and his frown softens around the edges. He contemplates with a forlornness you've always hated on him. He deserves better, and you've always known this, but the things that have made him deserve better have also sculpted him into an asymmetrical shape. Keith's spirit is bulky and unconventional, and it has taken plenty of maneuvering on your part to shove it through some of life's smaller doors.

"We have a lot of resources," you gently tell him, and he dismissively scratches at his nape undercut with digging claws. He closes his eyes. "You're the Red Paladin. Things could be easy for you."

"More like boring," Lance mutters.

This isn't how you wanted your first conversation after over half a decade to go, but you suppose old habits die hard. Keith is in need of guidance and this is radiating from his seven years of chronic indecision. It doesn't help that you're suddenly suspicious of Lance enabling him, but you don't have enough of the story to begin judgment. For now, you can only assume Lance knows more than you want him to and is being protective of his best friend.

"There's a lounge in the back," you tell them and take a seat at the control panel. You have documents to read, and suddenly, work sounds like a nice distraction. "You two should eat something."

Lance gingerly takes Keith's elbow with a 'thanks, Shiro' and commandingly tugs him toward the back. Keith clenches his fist in response but doesn't pull back. He lets Lance tow him through the sliding door.

Once they're no longer in the room, you wrinkle your nose and summon a purple holographic keyboard. It appears above your lap, and you frown as you type in the access code for the ship's security cameras. After rapid hunting, the two camera feeds overlooking the tiny lounge appear before you and you kill the sound, unable to breach that trust.

Keith is seated at a black triangular table with his face in hands while Lance paces beside him. He's talking, smoothing a set of fingers through his short hair, and while Keith's face is covered, you get the sense they're having a two-way conversation. Keith says something, and Lance pauses in surprise. He kneels down beside his partner and tries to look through Keith's veiling hands. When Keith doesn't drop them, Lance slams his fist on the table, and you protectively jolt. You know better than to move from your seat, but that single act of aggression runs through you. An emotionally vulnerable Keith is one you've always held with gentle hands.

Lance mouths four names you recognize – _Shiro, Allura, Hunk, Pidge_

Keith doesn't respond, and he yanks down one of Keith's arms. The two men stare each other down. Lance shifts as if to lean closer, but Keith withdraws. You loathe yourself for being invasive, but you continue to read Lance's lips.

_We can't keep doing this to them._

_We're not doing anything._

_Exactly, Keith. We're doing nothing. Two million in six years is fucking ballistic. I get it. You're hurt, but come on._

You exit the screens.

Whether or not they reach a conclusion, you don't know. The duo doesn't reappear in the cockpit until New Altea is in sight. By then, you've informed Allura through an encoded message that you have Lance and Keith onboard. There's no response from anyone except the staff that is now rushing to prepare rooms. This worries you. Allura always greets you in the hangar, which means if she reads your message too late, then the surprise will be overwhelming. Overwhelming is the last thing she needs more of in her life. She's already worked beyond means.

"I hate how much it looks like Earth," Lance says and it's then you notice he's drinking coffee. Keith is chewing on an energy bar. "Makes me miss Earth. Makes me miss my family."

You sympathetically smile at him. "The palace is unlike anything on Earth. I promise."

Already there's flight traffic. Being the universe's first new central hub since the end of the war, New Altea makes for congested flight routes you've become a pro at navigating through restricted courses. Knowing your ship is recognizable what with the black lion head painted across its side, you apply the invisibility cloaking and dive downward without warning the other two. Lance almost hits the deck and Keith exhales as he grabs the back of your chair. You glance back at him with a shrug and smile. He gives you an accusing stare.

Overhead, ships waiting for approval before making their descent through the atmosphere hover. A flashing symbol for an incoming call appears on your command screen. It's the template for Pidge's hacker insignia remade into the face of a lion whose jaw moves up and down. After appreciating Lance's laughter, you open the channel by manipulating one of your many floating control panels. You keep your face down, checking for any updates in terms of weather and traffic on the royal deck. One touch later, and you've handed the reins over to the palace landing dock. Eyes still downcast, a familiar face appears on the screen, and Lance makes a startled noise.

"Emperor Takashi Shirogane ready for landing?"

Coran's voice saturates the room, and when you look up, his eyes are closed and his mustache is twitching. He's going through one of his many stylistic phases and said mustache is now even longer, decorated with blue beads.

"Ready, Coran."

He opens his eyes with the intent to say more, but he stops short, startled. Shaking his head, Coran leans forward and looks at Keith. Processing, he drags his eyes across the screen to Lance. Not sure if he should believe what he's seeing, he looks back to you and rubs his eyes for several long seconds. He opens them even wider and presses his nose to the camera. It leaves behind an oily smear.

"Well, would you look at that."

You smile. It's hard to hide the sincerity in your voice. "I might've found a couple friends."

"Might have! Look at you both! Full grown and everything! Are those muscles on your muscles? You look more like heroes now than you did while piloting your lions!" Coran drags his hands down both sides of his face and continues to inspect. Lance poses, flexing, and Keith glances to the side with a half-masked smile. "Does Empress Allura know? She's been in meetings all morning. I haven't heard a word from her. She couldn't even eat her lunch with little Ryou today, so we spent the whole meal building a forest out of those strange tree-shaped vegetables you keep importing. Afterward, we ate red paste and napped until Nanny returned. We've had a productive day if I do say so myself."

"Broccoli," you say evenly, face falling at the thought of Coran teaching your son to play with his food. "He's supposed to eat it, not play with it. It's nutritional."

Keith's hand drops from your chair. You don't dare react, but your blood pressure spikes.

"When does Allura's next meeting end?" you ask, insistent with yourself to act normal.

"Now, actually."

You exhale in relief, suddenly rubbing the tension from a temple. "Make sure she knows before we land. Don't worry about the household. They're already making sure the Red and Blue rooms are ready."

Coran salutes and rights himself. "Straight away, sire. Good to see you, Lance and Keith. Already ready to catch up and maybe hug you both 'til you see those little black squiggly things."

"Likewise, Coran," Lance says and salutes with a grin.

Keith finally gives a full smile, and after a short laugh, he shakes his head.

"He hasn't changed."

The ship careens toward the capital, and suddenly, the ship is in full view of a massive cityscape with no predominant style. Rather, it's a hodgepodge of architecture that tangles together into something beautiful but chaotic in form. Surrounded by mammoth trees that hide its perimeters like gnarled walls, Alforis is already a developing grid built mostly by multicultural refugees who've been given a well-deserved place to flourish. Between the humane revision of the GAC system and opportunity to instate trade and strong markets, the bustling nucleus with its floating spherical storefronts and sleek white footpaths is a place of hope you someday foresee as a zenith for an opportunity. There are still social problems, there are blatant prejudices and every sociopolitical disparity one would assume could occur when colliding grieving transplanted individuals, but you know it could be worse. People are looking to the future. It's something many didn't know could exist until relocating.

"How did you do this in six years?" Keith asks, stepping closer to the window to gauge the neighborhoods below.

"I think I just saw a nightclub," Lance says, a hand pressed to glass as he peers down. "How are you feeding all of these people, let alone building clubs?"

You do your best to hide your pride. "I already said Allura and I could sleep more."

The ship passes over a neighborhood of floating red squares and immediately rushes along a sloping central market that surrounds an ornate crystal fountain in the shape of the Green Lion. The city itself is on a massive hillside, but that's because on top of the hill sits the prize of Alforis.

Keith glances up and is suddenly too stunned to hide his awe. "That's the palace?"

They were too busy looking down to notice before, but at the top of the steep hill sits an enormous fortress. It catches the light of the planet's three pastel suns and suddenly glitters back at them as if answering Keith's question. It's the Balmera Palace, a five-pointed structure with an exterior built strictly out of Balmera crystal, and it was the ultimate gift given to the Paladins of Voltron after defeating the Galra Empire for good. You recognize how it's powerful not only in terms of literal structure what with its five towers and multiple wings for both living and diplomacy, but also, its message. It's the idea of 'starting new journeys.' It's the idea of 'continuing on.'

After all, the Balmerans were the first people you and the other Paladins went the distance to save, and like so many others in the universe, its people never forgot.

"Each point represents a Paladin," you explain. "Allura originally wanted it to represent only Voltron, but there's an atrium in the center for endangered plant life. When she wasn't looking, I had statues of her, King Alfor and Coran erected there. Voltron wouldn't have saved the universe without the Alteans' sacrifices, and we couldn't have formed Voltron without Allura or Coran. I figured they deserved statues to match ours."

"There are statues of us?" Lance asks, pushing away from the window in disbelief. "Actual commemorative statues? We have war hero effigies in a palace?"

Again, Keith's arms cross. "That sounds excessive."

"Under different circumstances, I'd agree with you," you reassure him. "But artists need work, too. The man we commissioned proposed the idea and now runs the sector that fosters Alforis' humanities. He was one of the last prisoners we found alive. He almost didn't make it, and now, his work is a part of history. Every skill matters, Keith. Every person matters. By immediately giving artists work, that's what we're saying to newcomers."

His expression softens, but he's still not entirely convinced. "It's a monarchy."

You laugh. You don't mean to, but you do. "Tell me it's a monarchy after you see who I have to deal with every day of my life. I'm a delegator at best."

The quartz walls continue to twinkle at you, and its brightness is beautifully contrasted by the black sands and the pink foamy shoreline lapping behind it.

Lance is no longer looking at the palace. His eyes are on the beach.

The ship slopes and circles the hulking crystal. The grounds sprawl so far and wide its core gives off the appearance of a walled-off town existing within a city. Its greatness is practical, though. The Balmera Palace does more than house Allura and yourself. It houses working officials, advisors, esteemed guests ready to discuss post-war reconstruction for underrepresented planets and disabled war veterans and politicians who are now under fire for assisting with the resistance. This includes their families and the guards that protect them. This includes engineers, groundskeepers, cooks, and a series of specially trained pilots that maintain lifestyles. Half of the IAPP lives with you and your wife, and sometimes, you're amazed you two had space and time to make a child.

Once landed, you stand and guide them and your quiet comrades to the exit, ignoring your furious heart palpitations. You look at Keith, but he's concentrating on the airlock doors, waiting for the ramp to settle against the hangar's floor with a defining bang. Solidarity would be nice, but his blatant avoidance is good enough. His jaw is tight, lips settled into a thin line, and he won't even reply to Lance who's trying his hardest to engage him in conversation.

The airlock unseals with a gust of air that brushes back your bangs, and you're met by damp humidity. You plant your helmet underarm and stride forward as if unafraid. As soon as you're free of the corridor, a bustling grey expanse with a crystal ceiling greets you, but you're already searching straight ahead, seeking your wife. It's only a millisecond before you catch sight of her, and as soon as you see her at the end of the ramp, arms folded over her chest, you apologetically smile. This will be bittersweet or bitter. You understand there's no in between.

Allura, sporting her cut to shoulder-length hair, stands before you with her lips turned down. At the expression, you pause, and so do Keith and Lance.

You love her.

The years have raised her from a grieving leader to a regal frontrunner with no shame of her authority. Unlike you, she's retired her bodysuits and popularized Altean fashion and femininity. Currently in a white dress with a triangular plunging neckline and cowl skirt constructed using jagged angles, you're constantly aware of how stunning she is and how lucky you are. It's been years and you've never stopped admiring her, wanting her to want you and striving to make her happy, but for some reason, there's a disconnect that makes you wring your hands.

You felt it before you married her, and you're trying to learn how to un-feel it to this day.

The clatter of surrounding workers pulls you from your head. It's then you realize Allura and Keith are staring one another down, swiftly manifesting an uncertainty on the ramp you know you can't undo.

They were once best friends, and to be perfectly self-aware, you destroyed that with two words.

 

_"I do."_

You watch as they search one another's faces from a distance. The gap is closing, but they'll always teeter on the edges of their individual bluffs.  

 

 

_"We're not doing this."_

_"I'm not asking you to do anything."_

_"You've never had to."_

Like a frightened rabbit, Keith's chest is lifting and falling, the guilt and terror eating into his stoic expression. The fight or flight energy is clashing with Allura's gentle concern, but after several seconds of total silence, the resounding thud of Keith's weapon smacking against the ramp returns everyone to the present. Lance opens his mouth to ask Keith if he's okay, but Keith continues to descend, firmly interrupting him.

Allura rights her shoulders, steeling her expression. Keith abruptly turns his passive gait into a determined stride that would appear threatening if you didn't know better. You signal for the guards to be still, and Allura twists her mouth to the side as she sets her hands on her hips. No one is able to see Keith's reassuring cue, but when Allura slowly smiles, you assume he must have given her a look that stilled the planet. Keith brushes back his bangs, and the corners of her mouth hook upward even more. It startles you, but after shaking her head, Allura suddenly laughs in disbelief, tears springing forward.

"Hey, beautiful," you hear Keith say. "I mean, your highness."

It's all Allura needs to hear in order to sprint.

She meets Keith midway on the ramp, and the pair swing their arms around one another with enough force to inspire a new universe. Keith tightly hugs her thin middle as she rings her limbs around his neck, and they bury their faces into each other's throats with shaking shoulders. You wish they were laughing, but the thickness and digging nails imply they're sobbing. Keith sways her to the side and his gloved hand holds the back of her head with curled fingers. The cradling is intimate as if the years apart never happened, but it doesn't linger long. Allura smacks her hands onto his shoulders and playfully wrenches them apart. Eyes wet and sparkling, she sizes him up and laughs again through a dark blush that makes you and Lance simultaneously drop your mouths and raise brows.

"Who gave you permission to be this handsome? You are a crime against the universe!"

As usual, you agree with your wife.

She cups Keith's cheeks and he holds her wrists, speechless. He starts a word, but then softly laughs and gives up so he can look over his shoulder at Lance. The man, like yourself, is still digesting their greeting. It was the last thing you expected. In fact, you'd been mentally preparing for chilly looks and exposed organs.

"Lance!" she says and steps to the side, crooking her index finger. "Are you hiding?"

Lance places both hands against his chest and mouths 'me.' He impishly looks behind himself, points at you, but when she judgmentally shakes her head, he grins and jogs toward her. They also meet each other with a crushing hug, and you can't help but sigh in relief. To ask for anything better would've been selfish.

"I don't know what I expected today," Allura says, "but it wasn't this."

"Always full of surprises," Lance says and nudges Keith's side who's basking in his relief. "So! What'd we miss?"

Allura reaches for Keith's hand and judgingly lifts an eyebrow. "Everything."

You notice Keith is staring hard at their hands, and you try not to laugh.

Lance claps his palms together and rubs them like an eager fly. "No problem. We've got a while to catch up."

Continuing to hold a startled Keith's hand, she guides the three of you out of the hangar and into the palace's main corridor. It's stark white but baroquely accented with cornflower blue crystal facets that peek out of the walls in hexagonal perforations. Lance and Keith exchange looks, and you smile at their evident surprise. Allura doesn't give you room to say anything, though. She's pointing out rooms and their importance, not bothering to hide her pride.

She talks and she talks.

You realize she's wanted to talk for years.

"Shiro, did you tell Lance about the package his mother sent with the human liaisons?"

You blink at the memory. You're not sure why she'd think you'd remember on spot considering it was sent five months ago, but you sheepishly rub your jaw. "We just landed."

Lance stops in his tracks and looks at you with a raised eyebrow. He darts his stare back to Allura who understands that's a 'no.' Lance inhales and reaches for Allura's bicep, and again, you have to motion for the hidden guards to stand their ground. Eventually, they'll grow accustomed to the familiarity between all of you, but that will take time and you're going to have to be on high alert until a meeting on the matter is called.

"My mom," Lance repeats, voice tight. "Can we go to it now? Allura, I haven't talked to my mom in years."

Keith looks away from Lance, ears flicking back at the comment, and you know that look. He feels guilty. Allura lets go of Keith's hand, forcing your eyes from the man, and it's evident she understands better than anyone why Lance would feel the urgency to open the box. She nods at him and looks to you and Keith.

"Can you show Keith to the Blue Wing while we do this?" Allura asks, already guiding Lance toward another hallway. "I'm sure you two want to catch up one-on-one anyway."

Keith looks at you and eyes the color of the moon darken your thoughts. There's a shared fear you attempt to twist yourselves from, but as spider webs are insidiously designed, you simply tangle even more. Your brain flits to shadowed memories of Keith throwing back his head beneath you, and you see the lunar tips of his fingernails clawing at gray sheets, hunting for blood. You've seen his back muscles flexed and clawed, his forehead dewy with sweat, and you've kissed him until his lips were crushed grapes and swollen into the morning.

It's been too long to trace those memories, but you can't deny that there was a time in your life when kissing him was as beautiful as the moon and sun meeting in the morning.

Keith guts the silence.

"So, you have a kid?"

"A son," you say quickly, detracting from your thoughts at the mention of your child. "Ryou. You'll meet him tomorrow."

Keith swallows the name. He's refusing to emote, and it's frustrating for reasons you yourself can't explain. He doesn't pull his gaze from you. "How old is he?"

You can't blame him for asking.

How else would you react? Wouldn't you want to be polite, too? Wouldn't you realize that it wasn't the child's fault he was sired by a man who took your heart and crushed it to talc powder? Wouldn't you want to be fair?

"He's two."

Keith nods but all you see is his mouth enunciating the next word.

"Congratulations."

You meet that echo with a rehearsed line.

"It's the best thing I've ever done."

When you meet his stare again, you realize he's returned to the usual posture of having his arms folded over his pectorals. He appears indifferent, and it's then you gesture for him to follow you down the hall. You climb several staircases together in silence, but aside from greetings from staff, you're glad the hush has established itself. Allura insinuated catching up, but this is funny to you. The both of you are so far removed from one another you don't even know if there's a place to begin again. It's no mystery you two left off with cleanly cut wires. They weren't frayed. They're not even a fire hazard now. They're simply not touching, functioning, live.

Words don't leave your mouth again until your hand is pressed against a recognition pad. It's seated outside a fifteen-foot-high door with all of the Paladin insignias carved into its alabaster front, and you notice Keith carefully inspecting the way symbols circle a lion's head. The doors slowly part. "This is the Blue Wing. It's the private residential hall for the royal family and Paladins. We built it using everyone's designs, but right now, it's just Allura, me and Ryou who live here."

"I remember this door," he says distantly and follows you through the grand entrance. "Lance drew it."

"He did," you confirm. "We kept a lot of the original plans for this wing. If the bedrooms were changed, then they were only enhanced for practicality. The final touches were added right before Ryou was born."

The grand entrance is suddenly before you. Keith knowingly chuckles, and you flick a playful smile in his direction. Rather than have a single grand staircase leading into the dining room, living area, and bedrooms, the six of you laid out the plans when you were still young and void of refinement.

A white central staircase climbs toward the living room, private studies, game rooms and dining room, but surrounding it are six spiral staircases attached to each Paladin's, including Allura's, personal living space. The staircases are white, but their thin banisters are subtly color coded with accents to match the lions. It's overstated, and even you know it's tacky, but you appreciate the sentiment and enthusiasm that came with constructing the fantasy.

"This is a lot," Keith says, teasing the whole concept. He walks ahead of you and strides toward the red staircase. His fingers smooth along the black banister as he passes it, which sits dangerously close to the red, and he elegantly whips around to face you. "I'm allowed to go upstairs and look? It's mine, isn't it?"

"It's yours."

Impatient and clearly uninterested in a full tour, Keith bounds up the spinning flight, ears perked in what you know he'd never admit as excitement. You drag your hand along a cheekbone and follow him with a slower step.

The landing halts before a red cathedral top door and sleek black flooring. Keith pauses in front of it with a critical stare but intuitively presses his palm against the lock pad, wearing a determined expression. By the time the door is opening, you're behind him and awaiting his judgment.

"You can program it so more people have access to your door," you explain as Keith strides into the dark room. The lights pop on. "I have access to all the rooms, but I'll revoke mine from yours tonight."

Keith's bedroom is red.

Originally, the space was intended as a gift from you. It was supposed to be symbolic of new beginnings in a warm and comfortable setting, but rather than become that, it's stood barren for years.

With an expanse of dark hardwoods that stretch toward a raised secondary floor, the ground to ceiling window overlooks not just the rising capital, but during the night, frames New Altea's three moons. The biggest is red. The other two are a pale gold and a striking indigo that create lunar rainbows during the wintertime.

On the raised floor, the colossal bed sits diagonally to the window. It's a crescent-shaped sunken bedframe veiled by a canopy of crimson mesh. The collection of red pillows and blankets give it the illusion of a nest, but there are unspoken reasons for that you're sure Keith will acknowledge at some point. Across from the bed is a seating area planted before a hidden entertainment center and bookshelves, and on the lower floor, is a floor table meant for breakfast and whatever else one could want a table for. Overall, it's simple, spacious and mostly empty, but Keith has never wanted much in terms of material gains.

"This is where I'm staying?"

You lean against the shut door, paying close attention to how Keith's ears are perked at full attention. He wanders halfway across the room, but pauses when he catches the view above. Anyone else would have been struck by the vast cityscape outside the main window, but Keith's eyes have always been turned skyward.

"It's your room," you confirm. You clear your throat and silence a sigh.

Keith pushes back his bangs and smooths his hands down his angled cheeks, baby fat fully evaporated. He stops his fingers at his throat and reluctantly laughs, any bitterness replaced by hushed disbelief.

His ears finally flick back before he speaks. "These are Earth's constellations."

"They are."

"Shiro."

He means the stars you mandated be installed into the ceiling. Even before Keith told you he had to go, this was a secret part of the initial design. He had routinely felt disconnected from Earth while fearing the rejection of space, and watching him struggle with his identity for years had wounded you in turn.

What you've always wanted Keith to understand about himself is that he's the embodiment of the moment when one's feet are firmly planted on the ground but they pause long enough to see patterns in the stars. Truthfully, you've regarded Keith as transcendent with a seraphic capacity long before he discovered his otherworldly DNA. Between the angelic bow of his upper-lip and pervading determination to conquer obstacles be they internal or external, you've been aware of his most isolating qualities since day one. They're the same qualities that obstructed your life a decade ago. They're the same qualities that inspired you to accelerate through your enfeebled self-perception as Black Paladin and lead Voltron to a stellar victory.

He's everything. You hate yourself for thinking it years later, but he's the reason you are who you are.

"They're the ones above the Garrison," Keith says and drops his gaze to look back at you. Now that you're both entirely alone, he gives you a meaningful stare. It's pained, and in turn, your chest burns.

"It should be to scale." You push yourself off the door. Your throat is closing, and it's hard to be in his presence. It's unlike you to press for information, but you've always wanted to with him. It's evident you need to go before you ask questions. "You probably need to decompress. I'll have staff help you settle in, but I'll see you at dinner. Be prepared for Allura and me to interrogate you and Lance."

Keith parts his lips as if to say something to stop you. You see him hit the brakes, and you wish he wouldn't. He softens his expression and breathes.

"Thanks, Shiro."

You shrug and aloofly smile. "Always."

You need a moment alone, but it never comes. As soon as you descend Keith's stairs and settle your feet onto the grand entrance, Coran appears with a tablet in hand and an order from Allura. Normally, you'd be thankful for the distraction, but your brain has reached its limitations and you're no longer processing the world around you as you should. It's melting, and you've endured too much mental illness not to recognize you're dissociating right then and there. Coran doesn't need to know, though. Like a switch, you enter a hollow kind of autopilot that steadies you.

"Allura sends her apologies in advance, but dinner will be in the banquet hall tonight. She forgot you're both scheduled to entertain Emperor Xiat. If it makes you feel any better, she's just as disappointed. She'd started planning a dinner for Lance and Keith, and I had to remind her about _obligations_."

"You heard Lance. We have plenty of time to talk." You take the tablet from him and read your newest task. "You only get one first impression with these emperors."

"That's very true."

You don't see Lance and Keith again until you're seated in the banquet hall, dressed in stiff formalwear at a floating black table crowded by the universe's elite. The hall contrasts greatly with the rest of the palace what with its purple crystal accents and dark furniture, but the primarily white fashion loudly juxtaposes the decorations. As usual, you're the only one wearing black, but the sleeveless black turtleneck and skintight black pants have given you a reputation for being more than just a good leader. You're good looking, and everyone lets you know.

Keith enters alongside Lance and heads snap as soon as they stride through the doors. Their seats are reserved relatively close to yours and Allura's, but for the evening, Emperor Xiat is seated to your left. He's literally a grey-green slug, and he hasn't said anything to you since sitting down in his mucus puddle. The dinner, you realize, is pointless.

"They clean up," Allura says when she spots them.

Keith is also in black, but his sleeveless, wrapping blazer is triangular in shape and plunges down his naked chest without shame. His black pants are leggings in form, but the thin material is compensated with thigh-high boots so tight you imagine he needed help zipping them. Beside Keith, Lance's white shirt is similar to yours, but rather than sleeveless, he simply has sleeves that start at the elbow and end at his wrists. In white pants and tall boots, it occurs to you they're both infuriatingly good looking. They especially look good together.

"I have a feeling we won't be getting Lance near a razor."

She laughs but covers her mouth, reaching for her drink. "He looks rugged and handsome now. Let him have fun with it. It's definitely an improvement from being tied to a tree."

You don't bother to bite back your laugh, and Allura snorts into her cup.

The pair is guided to their seats, and you tear your gaze away as one of the wait staff explains the palace's dining system. It's five minutes in when two drinks you recognize as Earth imported whiskey are planted down in front of them. You don't mean to, but you incline your head and attempt to eavesdrop. Unfortunately for that day's uncharacteristically nosey disposition, you're only able to catch segments.

"Weaponry," Lance says and clinks his glass with Keith's. You notice his hand slip beneath the table and your pulse whispers, forcing your heart to flap its wings. Is he touching Keith? Yes. "You don't go to war without your rifle."

"That's what this is? This is war?"

"Look around us, my man. We're in formalwear."

You question their relationship.

It's been six years, so it's not your territory to tread, but the water is rising fast and your ankles are soaked. Once upon a time, you knew Keith inside and out. He's a man whose stability is riddled with underwater caves that took years to properly know, and though you view beings like Earth, that no one person should own its natural wonder, you can't help but hear the distant echo of jealousy.

You're a married man.

You're trying for a second child.

Then again, you're adult enough to understand jealousy is a natural emotion and it's the expression of such that ultimately counts. It's no mystery old flames don't die. They turn to embers. This is especially true for men who are made of fire.

The surrounding crowd swells, and suddenly, the pair is muted.

Keith murmurs something to Lance from the corner of his mouth. At first, his lips are settled downward in unapologetic aggravation, but they crescendo into a smile that filters into his craggy voice. He leans back in his chair as the excitement in his words escalates. His tension visibly melts into a puddle beneath his feet, and suddenly, Lance and Keith are laughing together, shoving one another's heads with fingers that comfortably card through the other's hair. It's an affection that transmutes you to a bygone era. There's another lifetime you still belong to, and it's the one where lunch tables exist and dormitories are every day. It's you, Keith, and it's the Garrison.

"It's sweet," Allura says, having noticed your line of sight. She watches them along with you, but after taking in the view, quirks an eyebrow. "Though, of all people for Keith, _Lance_."

"What do you mean?"

"You are being _very_ polite."

Lightheartedly, you smile to conceal your fear. "I haven't heard confirmation from either. I don't like to make assumptions."

Lance reaches for Keith's chin, and as soon as he grabs, Keith wraps his fingers around his wrist. They talk fast, switching from English to Galran to Spanish (when an ambassador passes), and then back to English. Unexpectedly, Keith pushes at Lance's throat and they retract wearing grins. Keith is bouncing his knee when he reaches for his potent drink. Lance knocks back the rest of his and coolly signals for two more. He turns his attention from Keith to a foreign princess you sat him beside, and it takes sixty seconds of fast-talking before she's leaned in, engaged with the whole package he's selling. Keith is nonplussed by this, and you are confused.

Allura notices, too. She looks to the side. "Maybe they have an arrangement."

"Keith doesn't do arrangements."

You say this too quickly, and you surprise yourself when your tone is bitter. If Allura notices, she doesn't act on it. Coran has already leaned in and started to proudly gossip about the emperor you're hosting. This thoroughly distracts her, which is a good thing. Your eyes aren't leaving Keith no matter how many times you scold yourself to look elsewhere, and you're ashamed of yourself. There's the regret of not putting Ryou to bed yourself. At least you would have had an excuse to leave, but no. You made your bed and you're now lying face down in it.

When your gaze shifts back to Keith after a ten-minute break, you notice two things; Lance is gone and Keith is looking at you with a speculative stare. Eye contact happens and holds, but instead of either of you being embarrassed, you exchange proud, questioning looks and coolly turn your heads.

You could stand and go talk to him. You could take Lance's seat and finally have a quick conversation about the palace and political climate, but for some reason, you can't bring yourself to do it.

You lean toward Allura. "I'm going to check on Ryou."

"Shiro," Allura begins and reaches for your hand, "he's okay. The nannies are watching him."

Gently, you take her hand and kiss her knuckles. "I want to see for myself."

Her expression drifts to an understanding gaze that devours you. You know she knows this has nothing to do with Ryou, but you also know she's still assuming wrong. It's not about the overwhelming crowd or being tired due to being out on the field. This has nothing to do with any of your typical limitations inspired by years of mental corrosion. This is about Keith, but it's not about Keith alone. It's about the horrible realization you never mourned him leaving.

The two of you part with soft goodbyes, and you ignore onlookers as you stride from the banquet hall and toward the Blue Wing. When there's no one but the guards to see you, your pace quickens into a walk that hinges on a jog. You want to sprint, but that would draw attention, and attention is the last thing you need.

_"Don't do this to us, Shiro."_

_"I know what I'm doing."_

 

_"You have no idea how this will end. I take it back. I take it all back."_

_"We can't just take this back!"_

You enter the wing and take the main steps. On their own, the doors open into the public living space with its fire pit of cool blue flames. You circle around it toward the next door, which also opens for you, and suddenly, you're standing in a massive study and private library. By now, your breathing is thick, dangerously unsteady, and you press your palm against the lock pad reader so the door shuts behind you. The room is dark, and it's quiet, but this isn't your final destination. You can't purge you heart so close to the place you call your home. Your child plays here and your wife has spent several evenings bent over the tables with you fucking her to screams, chanting your name until her knees shake and back sweats.

You hear her groans, her pleas for you to give her a prince, but it collapses into a separate echo. It's no longer Allura but Keith. It's a fragile memory of the Red Paladin's darkest era and one you will never share with anyone except him.

It was after the accident. The quintessence exposure that defiled the young man's anatomy.

_"Hurts. It's fucking disgusting, but it hurts, Shiro. It hurts for you and won't stop opening and cramping and — " A muffled scream, a wounded animal. "Can we get rid of it? Can Allura cut it out? I don't — it's doing it again. Fucking no, no. Make it stop! Shiro, make it stop!"_

Nothing, nothing and then:

Keith is naked from the waist down and you're postured in the Black Lion's seat. He's bottoming out on your cock, and you're calling him the perfect man as he chokes back enraged sobs and punches the chair's back directly beside your head over and over. His fresh cunt — something you only refer to it as after Keith does — is oozing onto your lap, thickly spilling globules like honey forgotten in the sun.

The thud of his punches build your migraine, but violently, you block it out.

Kids. You were kids. 

Beyond the bookshelves is a private reading room hidden behind an unassuming wall. You rarely go there except for times like this, but when you push your hand against the hidden lock, you've never been more thankful for it.

You step inside and wait for the door to shut behind you. Only when it seals itself do you exhale and shove your bionic fingers through your bangs. There's a black floating chaise surrounded by sparse bookshelves and knickknacks collected during your journeys, and there's a tiny window that overlooks the Red Pinnacle's courtyard.

Past the glass is the red statue of Keith, and when you see it, realize your subconscious design choice, you grit your teeth and suck in a frustrated cry. Your heart beats its fists against your ribcage, begging for air as it suffocates, and you begin to pace with your fingers viciously rubbing at your eyes. This isn't the reaction you anticipated, but you should've known seeing him again would thrust a blade through your third and fourth rib.

You love him.

You've never stopped loving him.

You were a fool to think you had.

With a sharp inhale and unfortunate swell of rage, you reach for the nearest side table and toss it with a yell. The drinking glasses and expensive crystal crash against the floor, shattering across the white marble like a glittery spray. You're aware this is a childish fit, but when do you ever let yourself expend emotional energy? When are you anything but perfectly put together and steadily ruling alongside your wife? After all the pain you've endured, your life has reached a summit of perfection that would give most a god complex, but no. You're unhappy. You're living for every expectation the universe crushed you with, and now you're suffocating because what you want is back.

"Fuck!" you scream the word, and it echoes as you drag your nails along the back of your scalp. You're on the brink of sobbing. You're on the brink of drawing blood. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!"

There's nothing you can do.

You can't get rid of him now.

After all, it was Allura who ordered you retrieve him.


	3. Chapter 3

You love him.

You've never stopped loving him.

You were a fool to think you had.

One sharp inhale later, and you sink to your knees inside that new bedroom, holding your throat with both hands. Invisible smoke snakes into your lungs and tears shatter across hardwood like glass. You're aware this is a childish fit, but when do you ever let yourself expend emotional energy? When are you anything but utterly unmoved as you traipse the universe's underbelly alongside Lance? After all the pain you've endured, your life has reached pinnacle denialism that would have most blissed out by ignorance, but no. You're unhappy. You've been running from every expectation the universe tried to crush you with, and now you're suffocating because what you want is back.

"Fuck," you mutter. The next sentence is soured milk. "Fuck you."

You're not sure if you mean Shiro or yourself, but you decide it's interchangeable.

New Altea's three moons are hanging high and bleeding into your room. They provide a sense of vacancy that's overwhelming, and though you could use someone to bounce your feelings off of, you know Lance has gone to bed with someone. While Lance is always there, you're accustomed to him being absent at the most inconvenient times. In a way, you're sure he's coping by getting his dick wet. Seeing Shiro and Allura and finding out what was inside the box likely put him in a strange place too.

Officially embarrassed, you mop tears and exhale. There's a bathroom across the room, and you stand with a soft grunt, stripping formalwear as you walk toward the door. It whirrs open for you, and you're greeted by a deep, red crystal tub perched on top of a wooden pedestal with stairs. You pass the ornate mirror and tub, refusing to look at your ruddy face, and halt at the open shower stall. The rainfall showerhead sputters to life, pouring sheets of pearly water, and you step beneath its perfectly calculated warmth with deflating shoulders.

Only after you've scrubbed yourself red and taken ten minutes to sit on the shower's cold bench do you towel off and crawl into bed, naked. The mattress is luxuriously plush, and the sheets are so soft you can't help but nuzzle against them. The bed's shape and pillow count tell you Shiro built it with nesting in mind, and though the palace was designed with expanding families in general, you're irritated. Thankfully, you're too overwhelmed by the day's events to let it spoil your defeated mood.

You don't remember falling asleep. It's swift and dreamless, and it's what you need.

When you wake up, the sun is spilling through the bed's hanging mesh, draping your body in red light. You peel your eyes open, staring out the grand window as you remember exactly where you are and what happened the night before. Reality settles over you like dust, and even though you could sleep more, you rub both of your eyes with an unsteady inhale. You check the time on your wristwatch and realize you've slept in later than you have in years. Not that you blame yourself. The bed is immorally comfortable. It's damn near obscene. 

"Shit," you whisper and sit upright, leaning over your lap.

On the lower level of the room, you spot a tray of food, but most importantly, you notice the pitcher of coffee waiting for you. Sustenance lures you from the bed and to the closet a staff member by the name of Glit Wixillian showed you the night before. The lights pop on as you enter, and you're forced to acknowledge clothing other than an undersuit and jacket for the first time in years. In your heart of hearts, you know whatever sense of style you had on Earth has eroded. Apparently, whoever notified the staff his closet should be stocked knew this too.

_A lot of black._

You tell yourself you have no idea why this would be the only color in the custom closet.

It's not like you're _that_ kind of person. You like color. You like red. 

A holographic screen appears in the center of the closet, projecting the weather and spinning through potential looks put together by Allura's stylists. Something about this mortifies you, and you awkwardly reach to scroll through the various outfits, surprised that you like most of the selection. After making the observation black minimalism must be in, you decide on black leggings, a red windbreaker, and low-cut tank. One pair of boots later and you're satisfied enough with the look. It's not like you'll be participating in meetings just yet. 

"Haircut," the holograph suddenly sputters. "Now."

"Not a chance," you grumble, and the closet's racks spin, sending the chosen articles of clothing your way.

Dressed and teeth brushed, you eat in silence and wonder if Lance is awake yet. You message him on your watch, but he doesn't answer, so you figure exploring the castle will kill time. You own a part of it anyway. You're even entitled to snoop, but there's also the high chance Allura and Shiro will want to spend time with you as soon as you're available.

If you didn't have an emotional hangover before, then you do now.

You finish your coffee and muster up the energy to descend the stairs. It's a hard-won feat, but you make yourself stand and stride out the door. You're halfway down the flight when a sound brushes past like a threat. Its ring is sudden and harsh, and you don't recognize it. Your ears curiously perk upward, one turning toward the noise as you decipher what exactly you're hearing. There's what sounds like a scream, but you quickly realize it's a happy yell followed by the pitter patter of feet. Their strides are short, unsteady.

There's a thud that makes you quicken your step, and then, a sharp wail stops you in your tracks.

"This is why we don't run inside," Coran says from inside the den. His tone is gentle, barely authoritative. "Another bruise like last time and your papa is going to have my head. Come here now. No tears."

Curious, you jog toward the main floor. The central living space's doors are flung open, and you know you can't avoid being seen. Deciding it's better to face certainties head on than run from a toddler, you cautiously take the stairs toward the den. The living room sits stark white with a fire pit crackling in its center. The flames are blue and ringed by plush levitating white couches and chairs. It's seconds before you locate Coran, but when you spot him in the farthest corner with a baby settled on his hip, the reality of the situation crashes down.

"All better, aren't we?" Coran soothes, not noticing you.

Never before had you considered the possibility that the human species's genes could be dominant.

Even from where you're standing, you comprehend the child is the spitting image of Shiro. With black hair and nut-brown skin, the baby prince is a testament to the union between two beautiful monarchs. It's in his cherub face, his tiny button nose, and the distinct almond-shape you know to be Shiro's eyes. It's in the Altean blue of his gaze, and while not as sharp as Allura's, the subtle points of his small ears. In short, he's the crowning jewel of Shiro's and Allura's achievements, and this is as beautiful as it is painful to you.

You hate that it hurts.

You hate that this innocent child who's done no wrong hurts you.

"Look who's awake, Ryou! It's Uncle Keith," Coran says and turns the baby to face you. "And right when we thought we'd have to go nab him ourselves."

 _Uncle Keith. Right._ _If that's what we're calling the man who blew Emperor Takashi Shirogane on a nightly basis for two years straight, then sure._

"So I found the prince," you say with a smile and stride to meet Coran. "I was expecting a formal introduction from Shiro, but I guess the emperor and empress are busy."

"As they always are."

The toddler stares at you with wide eyes, tears still drying. His pout is gone, and suddenly, he's fascinated by you and you alone. His interest makes you uneasy, but children always make you nervous.

"He looks just like them," you murmur and stop at a safe distance. "The eyes. Everything."

Ryou stares at the top of your head, and you realize he's fascinated with your ears. You quirk an eyebrow, and one flicks back, making Ryou open his mouth and look to Coran. "Kitty, Grandpa?"

His voice is so angelic and light you have the impulse to punch yourself in the throat. Quickly, you come to grips with the violent reaction and thank the cosmos for not letting Lance hear a child call you 'kitty.'

"A tough kitty," Coran assures him. "This is the Red Paladin your Papa tells you stories about. He's the one who saved the universe. He defeated Prince Lotor."

If you weren't full of anguish before, then you are now.

Ryou plants his hands against his cheeks and squishes in amazement. He gives a tiny gasp that is so precious you feel ill, and Ryou doesn't seem to believe Coran at first. He snaps his gaze back to you, and his prolonged stare tells you it's sinking in. Being the object of a child's admiration isn't new for you, but you've never had to deal with it alone. Up until now, your lifestyle didn't call for it, and if there ever was an encounter, Lance buffered those situations. He had sibling experience and general charisma. You, to be as polite as possible, tend to be matter-of-fact.

Lance once called it 'Only Child Syndrome.'

You countered with 'Orphaned and Emotionally Stunted Syndrome.'

He'd told you to, "Get a therapist."

By some miracle, you want this child's approval. You're not sure what it is, but you suspect it's the 'Paladins are Family' principle you know you can't will away. Paladins _are_ family, and that means, by extension, their children are too. You soften your face and plant a hand on your hip.

"I bet you know a lot about Voltron," you say, tone gentle. It's not awkward. It's just _weird_.

Ryou nods. He nods very fast.

You extend your hand, and as if it were a shift of a limb, summon the Red Bayard in its grip form. Its hail of summoning glitter reflects off Ryou's enchanted stare, and he squirms out of Coran's hold, no longer as shy as you believed him to be. Holding the weapon, you crouch down in front of the toddler and present the handheld, knowing it's safe.

"This," you say as Ryou's small fingers curl around one a handle, "is the weapon that defeated Prince Lotor before you were born. Have you seen the Red Lion?"

Ryou shakes his head, and you let go of the Bayard so he can hug it to his chest.

"You were the last to see Red before we hid her," Coran says, eyes shut. You don't realize it then, but he's masking how endeared he is. "No one is allowed to see her unless it's an emergency."

"Makes sense," you say, but you never take your eyes off how fascinated Ryou is. Again, children are an anomaly. The whole experience is an anomaly. He's a small person, but he's also part of someone who was once your favorite person.

It's surreal.

"I know I've had a long morning, but am I seeing what I think I'm seeing?"

Caught red-handed, you don't bother to right yourself. Instead, you quirk your lips and look toward the door where Shiro is standing, arms crossed over his chest and a tablet tucked beneath his armpit. He tosses the technology onto a nearby couch, and you raise an eyebrow, smiling as he walks toward you. Ryou is already racing away, holding up the Red Bayard like a trophy. Your chest squeezes when Shiro's eyes light up.

He's in black again.

Ryou calls to Shiro as 'Papa,' and you have a difficult time coming to grips with the fact Shiro is a father. He's someone's parent, and he will always be that someone's father, dead or alive.

"What do you have there?" Shiro asks and reaches beneath Ryou's arms to lift him onto his hip. Ryou shows him, and Shiro laughs, feigning fascination. "Is that the Red Bayard?"

"Uh-huh," Ryou says and brings it back to his torso. He suspiciously pouts. "Don't take it."

Shiro shifts his gaze to you, good-naturedly judging. "It's not mine to take. You know, I haven't seen that since before you came out of Mommy's tummy."

Ryou extends his arms to examine it better. "It's mine."

You snort and finally stand. "I'm never getting that back."

"Considering you just handed a toddler one of the world's most powerful weapons, you might not need it back."

"Really, Shiro," you say, shifting your weight onto a foot and matching his penetrating stare. "We both know it's safe out of Paladin hands. If he summons the sword, then I'd be impressed, not worried."

"You say that because you don't have kids."

You shrug. You feel no loss there. "Guess I'll never not say that then."

Shiro inhales through teeth and rolls his eyes away from you. He sets Ryou down who scampers to Coran's leg. "I know better than to say anything else."

"Not everyone takes Father of the New Universe as literal."

You two smile at one another, assessing how offended either might be by your differentiating tones. When it's clear neither is phased, you both clear laughter from your throats and look back at Ryou. Coran is fiddling with his tablet, humming to himself and attempting to blend in with the wall. It's obvious, but you appreciate the effort.

"He's a beautiful kid, Shiro. Good job."

Shiro fondly looks on at Ryou who's attempting to maul Coran's leg with the Bayard. "Thank you."

"He looks just like you, though. I was expecting white hair."

"Apparently, the Punnett square applies to Alteans too."

Ryou shyly whispers about wanting food and Coran is relieved. Bayard and all, he lifts the toddler and brings him onto his hip with a bounce. "Better go feed the cub before he turns into an angry klanmürl. You know how he can be. Don't want to get bit again. Left a nasty mark last time. Thought it'd scar for sure."

"Bit," you flatly repeat. Coran nods. He rubs the top of Ryou's head who seems pleased with himself.

When they're gone, Shiro's expression drifts. You know he's unconscious of it. "I think Allura was a little disappointed."

Your expression falters. All you can do is echo him. "Disappointed."

"It's not as bad as it sounds. He didn't inherit her markings or her hair, and after everything that happened to her people, she wanted to preserve distinct Altean features. I don't blame her."

"He's not the only one you're going to have," you carefully say and look back to the corridor Coran and Ryou disappeared into. "Right?"

Shiro clears his throat. This thought doesn't appease him. "No. There'll be more."

It takes a moment, but all at once, you realize why having more than one child with Allura could be an obstacle. You look back to Shiro and lower your voice, trying to be courteous. "There's a chance that if one looks more like her than the other she could play favorites."

"I don't think that'd happen."

"You're saying that, but you implied it."

"Never mind." He breaks his chuckle and runs a hand over his mouth. "This isn't an ideal first conversation after six years."

"Don't joke, Shiro. You and I have never done formalities."

Shiro isn't keen on that rationale. He lifts his shoulders and lets them drop with a long look to the side. He hesitates. "As the empress, I'd like to think my wife is above that. As a person, you have to consider the black and white view of parenthood we grow up with isn't set in stone. Parents veil things and put their children above the veil."

_My wife._

"Sounds complicated," you offer, having no real understanding.

Shiro quirks a corner of his mouth and raises his palms. "Tell me what isn't."

"I like challenges, but even I know when I'm out of my league. I wouldn't know what to do."

He considers this, but his eyes crinkle in amusement. "That's a new one from you."

"You of all people should know a lot can happen between twenty-two and twenty-eight." You slide your hands into your windbreaker's pockets and step toward him, boots lazily scraping across the floor. You intend to walk past him to explore. "I shouldn't distract you from your royal duties, though. You're on the clock."

Shiro doesn't miss a beat. He never does. "I could be off the clock if you want to give me a minute."

You stop in your tracks and level your tone. "Don't make it sound like I'm using minutes. I don't even know why I'm here. I guess I need to have a meeting with a financial advisor or whatever."

In truth, you knew what he meant. He meant 'if you can stand to be around me,' but you're not in mind to start that discussion. Something tells you it'll come eventually. Sooner than later, surely.

"One second." He reaches for the tossed aside tablet. With his bionic hand, Shiro drags his fingers along the screen. It's several taps and a slide of his palm later before he looks up. "You have a meeting the day after tomorrow. Until then, there should be a card in your bedroom that runs directly to your accounts. We have hover vehicles to use around the city, but I wouldn't recommend leaving the palace walls until we publicly announce the Paladins are back together at the gala. It might cause a scene."

You thought you wanted to leave before, but you were wrong. _Now_ you do. "A gala sounds… It sounds like a bad time. A lame time."

"I agree, but there's nothing we can do about it. Insult anyone inside these walls, and you wake up with a headache. Consider it business. We mingle with the IAPP as a unit for one night and don't think about it again."

"That's a lot of fuss for a temporary situation."

Shiro sets aside the tablet again. He ignores that prod. "Do you want to see where you're staying?"

You passively shrug. Lance still hasn't replied. "Why not?"

There are plenty of reasons not to, and you know this. The muscles in Shiro's face visibly relax, but you once knew how he computed emotions. That blank slate could mean a hundred things or nothing at all.

Unprompted, you recall the final conversation you had with the man before you ran away. The memory amplifies apprehension and makes your mouth feel draped with cling wrap. By being kind to you, Shiro is doing the mature thing. Shiro has always done this and done it well. You recall a time when you attempted to mirror this methodology until it occurred to you that, while inspired by the man, you could never be him.

Shiro takes you through the living space and dining room where Ryou is feeding himself with determined motor skills. Shiro leans over and kisses the child's head, and you notice how large the table is. It's circular with many seats that have never been used. The implied emptiness possesses isolation that hits you with guilt. As you pass the table, Ryou waves, and you notice the Red Bayard secured on his lap. It's speckled with what looks to be creamed spinach. Trying to smile, you wave back and sigh through a defeated laugh.

"The Red Paladin is his favorite," Shiro explains and nudges you. The familiarity is startling, but you comfortably roll your eyes. "I've told the story about you defeating Lotor so many times I could recite it in my sleep."

"Does he know about the part where you saved me?" you ask, belatedly nudging back.

"He knows about the part where you used both the Black and Red Bayards."

This bothers you, and you realize why. "Don't erase yourself from what happened."

"I know where I mattered the most."

"Shiro, saving my life saved the universe."

He meaningfully looks at you but tears his glance away. "I guess I never thought about it that way."

From the dining room, you're lead across a den to imposing double doors Shiro calls the study's entry. The doors slowly swing open, and you're more impressed by the enormity of its bookshelves than he is. They're tall, stark white, but glittering beneath a wall of windows like crushed quartz. The study is rows upon rows of shelves that reach for the clouds, and speckled across a pale, reflective floor are hovering tables weighed down by unfinished study sessions. Shiro ambles through, pointing out different sections of books and breaking down the categorization. 

You feign interest the whole time, but you're distracted.

Distracted by Shiro, mainly.

It's how he carries himself, you decide. This is his home. This is where he exists away from an aggressive work schedule. He's very much settled into this space and the days of aching for Earth seem reconciled. When you left New Altea, this couldn't have been further from the truth. It doesn't surprise you Shiro's emotional elasticity fit around his permanent departure from Earth, but something about his seamless existence as a man in his house embarrasses you. Logically, you comprehend you're assuming, but you can't help but feel like you've been throwing a six-year fit and he moved on the night you packed and ran.

"The Red Garden is on this end of the Blue Wing, and the Blue Garden is on the other end near the extra bedrooms," Shiro says, anchoring you into the moment.

You pause your steps to look through a thick glass you've unknowingly been walking past. The window overlooks a shallow patio carrying round white benches and an unlit fire pit. It's white, as everything seems to be aside from the crystals, and is connected to a whimsical staircase that snakes to the garden. Along the patio's horizon, you notice what first stands out like a waving red sheet. Your eyes adjust and you realize it's an assortment of swaying plants, specifically blossoms.

You step forward to get a better look.

The courtyard is walled in, circular with a ten-foot Balmera crystal statue postured in the center. It stands tall on a golden pedestal with its booted foot in front of another. Its torso is leaned forward in mid-bend, and yes, you recognize that stance. It's the one you step into when on the verge of attacking. Ultimately, it's recognizable because the statue is you. It's you at twenty with Paladin armor and the Black Bayard in your left hand and the Red Bayard in your right. Your expression is level, pensive in the face of great fear, and it occurs to you that this is what Shiro saw before you sprinted for Lotor. It was you facing the universe, and Shiro was there.

"Do you want to see it?" Shiro asks, hand pressing to the wall. A concealed keypad ripples to the surface beneath his palm, and the window slides open like a door.

"Only to make sure it's accurate," you say and step out into the humid air. It's surprisingly fresh even if it wets your lungs like a hot shower.

You find it funny. The whole thing is hilarious as you step across the patio, but amusement drifts as swells of red become blinding. You pause at Shiro's side and overlook the decadence that's gnarled trees with black branches and red and white flowers. They're hidden in the deepest corners of the garden, and much later, you learn they bear fruit used by the kitchens. The many suspended benches are meant for meditation, but the one in front of the statue catches your eye. It's in front a plaque, but you already know you're not going to read it. You don't want to know how wrong you've been interpreted.

"I don't know why I didn't expect this much red. Are any of these from Earth?"

"There are a couple rose bushes."

Shiro descends the stairs, and you follow him.

Red flowers make you think about the color's history. If you remember correctly, then red pigments tend to symbolize poison. They're nature's caution sign, the intersection's red light. You're the blinking on the gate blocking the oncoming train while also being everyone's first favorite color.

Stop.

You embody what it means to stop, but you're the color of unstoppable rage.

"I don't even remember what it's like to have two legs," you murmur, not sure why something about it rings sullen. Your brain flashes to the red moment when Lotor's blade slammed through the bone as you decapitated him. "I'm so used to the prosthetic it doesn't cross my mind."

"You had a good team build that leg for you." Shiro shifts his gaze to your right thigh. Pain flashes across his eyes, but he hides his remorse well.

"I had a good friend help me through the worst of it. He knew what I should expect."

"Yeah. Well, he still could've been better."

To change topics, you look on as you reach the ground. You're not ready for apologetic commentary, so you gaze at the statue of yourself instead, scrutinizing. "Should've gotten rhinoplasty before saving the universe."

Shiro's recovery time is as impressive as ever.

"It's like you had priorities or something."

"Did I?" You glance to the side, unconvinced. "What were those again?"

"Not ending a fascist regime."

"Doesn't ring a bell. I don't even know what _regime_ means."

To your surprise, he laughs. The easy melody makes your heart stumble on an uncertain lurch. Before he can answer, you're talking again, striding toward the statue and looking over your shoulder. You're smiling. You don't know why, but smug zest has always been a part of your relationship with him.

"This is masturbatory. This is a lot."

Shiro tilts his face away, licking front teeth beneath his lips. "You should see mine."

"Is it massive?"

"Don't go there with me."

"That means it's _massive_."

He's doing his best not to laugh, but it rolls like smoke. "Keith, really?"

Shiro sweeps his hand along his throat. You spot the pink tinge and suppress pleased laughter. Giving yourself a swift kick in the ass to remind yourself you're still bitter would be a good idea, but good ideas off the battlefield aren't your forte. You talk over his embarrassment, inspecting the finest details of your statue's boots.

"It's like I discovered a way to jerk myself off without using my hands." You walk around the pedestal, said hands stuffed into your jacket pockets. "Having a statue like this is giving me another thing to cope with."

"Want to know something that might make this better?"

"Our lives have made the definition of _better_ pretty shallow."

"Women kiss your statue for fertility luck."

This stops you in your tracks. As you process what this means, you reach up and scratch at your left eyebrow, eyes closed. "Not only does that make me want to breathe in the dirt, but that means my statue has gotten more action than I have in years."

Shiro stops and lifts a brow. He doesn't look away from the sculpture, and he acts disinterested. "You and Lance then?"

You saw this coming from a mile away, but you thought the pace would be slower, less direct. You can only reply as flat as possible. It's not like you owe Shiro an answer, let alone an explanation.

"No. We… ah, no."

The way he casts his gaze to you turns your heart into a bowl of oatmeal. He doesn't believe you, you realize, but he gracefully projects his disbelief.

"Being a space cowboy doesn't sound like it makes much room for _steady_."

The statue loses its initial luster, and you shift your attention from it, approaching scarlet flower rugs. You crouch down and inspect an alien cluster of droplet-shaped flowers that sing when the wind shakes them. Intrigued, you touch one, but the tear unhinges from its stem, colliding with the walkway. It smashes like crystal, and the ringing startles you into standing. The shards melt and stain the path like human blood. This disconcerting imagery makes you look back to Shiro.

He's reading the plaque.

You open your mouth to say something, but the watch he's wearing manically beeps. He looks down, rereads the message, and you smile when he deflates.

"Business calls?" you ask when he ambles toward you.

"Business calls," he confirms.

Eyes darting down as you begin to point out the dead flower, you stop mid-gesture and realize the red is no longer there. You clear your throat and turn toward him. "Thanks for showing me around, Shiro."

"Anytime," Shiro says and brushes his bionic fingers through his bangs. "If you have any questions just ask the staff. They'll help you, especially while you still have novelty."

There's a pause as you think through what you want to say, but your expression drifts. Maybe it softens. "I want to see the Black Garden next time."

His watch beeps again, and over his shoulder, you note your statue's turned back. Shiro digests the request with a long stare that's heavy with unspoken sentiments. Both of you can recognize a peace offering. Both of you know how to bite the bullet for the sake of making life easier on one another. You'd think, after the previous failings of this intuitive system, you'd have broken the habit of reading one another's minds.

"Next time," he answers hopefully. That's all there is between you two. Hope. "I'll make time for you."

Like a dropped curtain, the bitterness returns.

You wonder why it took six years of silence for Shiro to tell you he could put forth the effort and make time for you. There's the thought that his comfort made for more flexibility, manipulation, and complacency. Of course, it did, you tell yourself, and Shiro turns his shoulder with a quick wave. Causality through comfort is fundamental human relationships, and how unfortunate for you both. The two of you are so human in everything you do. The innateness was long ago proven inescapable.

Shiro climbs the stairs to the study's patio doors, and only when the doors are shut behind him do you take a seat on a bench. You lean forward, hanging your head between your knees. You suck back sharp, shallow breaths.

_We've aged. This ideation of him and me is rooted in something I can never let myself return to because we were both sicker than we are now, and why would I dig my nails under a scab he's taken such good care of? It's on me that, when I look at him, I know I haven't changed the dressings in six years._

_Why didn't I return to Earth with Lance?_

This question haunts you for the rest of the day.

You find Lance only after you've dragged yourself off the bench and walked through the study and into the den. He's lounging on a couch, leg dangling over the side and a tablet held above his face. A blunt sits between his lips and purple smoke curls above his head. He's relaxed in a tank top and tight black pants, but you know those dark circles. He was up too late for his aging body, and you fight the urge to call him out.

"How was time with the old flame?"

"Shut up," you mutter and collapse onto his legs. He wrenches them out from beneath you and drapes them over your lap. "He showed me my statue. Where were you?"

"Hungover. The usual."

"The usual."

The two of you sit in silence, and you're flushing your brain clean of Shiro's voice. You've become an expert at this over the past few years. It's Lance who decides to fill the room with noise.

"It's weird," he says. This isn't up for discussion. You already agree anyway. "It's weird because seeing Shiro and Allura again should be weirder. Allura and I caught up like we'd been apart six months, not six years. Is that normal?"

"We didn't walk away from Voltron in normal relationships."

This is an understatement. Being trapped on a spaceship with limited human contact beyond one another had irreparably reconfigured everyone's idea of relationships. Lance and you had not only undergone quintessence withdrawals from your lions, but after leaving the other Paladins, slipped into self-destructive fits of depression. Both you and Lance had sobbed yourselves to sleep because of separation anxiety. It had lasted for months, the impact still echoing through you.

"Keith, I hate to break it to you, but we never walked away from _Voltron_."

You lean over the couch's arm and rest your cheek on your bicep, looking forward. Your response is delayed but thoughtful. "Maybe."

Your first breakfast is the last meal you have alone in Balmera Palace.

A late lunch happens with Lance seated beside you, and you tell him about the Red Garden and Ryou. He finally tells you what was in the box, but it's just recipes, pictures and letters from his siblings and their children. You know they're more than just recipes, pictures, and letters, but he'll come to you about the rest later. Afterward, you both escape the Blue Wing in an attempt to find the Red Wing, but neither one of you have the ordinance to explore it. From what you gather, it's a top secret end of the Balmera Palace, which stokes your curiosity even more. The Green Wing is less secure, but it's still laboratories.

"We probably have to be readmitted into the system," you mutter when your palms are denied at the Green Wing's second set of doors.

Lance crosses his arms. "It's still bullshit that even the namesake of the Red Wing can't get into the Red Wing. You killed Lotor. I think that's enough security clearance for one lifetime."

You plant your palm against the reader for the third time, and it beeps at you in warning. Lance exhales and grabs your elbow, tugging you toward the doors you just walked through.

"Let's try and find a bar or something."

Only at dinner do you see Allura and Shiro again. They're seated with Coran and Ryou, discussing the climate of an IAPP meeting from the week before. Shiro is lowly speaking to Allura while simultaneously wiping Ryou's face. He's trying to eat the napkin in revenge, and when Lance notices, he laughs. Food is scattered and steaming on the table in an assortment of dishes, and thankfully, it's nothing like the Castle Lion fare. After drinking, you want everything there. 

"I can't get over how much Junior is your junior, Shiro," Lance says and drops himself into a seat beside Coran. You sit to Ryou's right who stops gnawing on his father's hand to look at you.

Shiro pauses and looks at Ryou who has forgotten about his plate of squiggly pasta. "I'm going to assume that's a good thing. Thanks, Lance."

"When are _you_ going to start a family?" Allura asks as Lance goes to reach for a bowl of food. She knows better than to ask you that question.

He stops mid-grab and looks at you. You look at him as if trying to instill the Fear of God. Lance grins and looks back at Allura with a shrug. He darkly chuckles at your unspoken rage and ladles food onto his plate.

"I'm sure there are some McClain babies floating among the stars."

Allura's expression drops. "That's awful, Lance."

"I'm kidding, your highness."

See, but he's not kidding.

He's paying child support on an infant on the cusp of toddlerhood. It's been a painful point of contention between you both. If you overthink it, then you'll make yourself ill, so you push it further back inside your head, hoping it'll finally rot there. 

Shiro glances at you for solidarity in Lance's unchanged self, but you're distracted by Ryou. He's offering you his well-handled pasta.

"Sounds like the IAPP is giving you shit," Lance says and passes you a bowl. You take it, and when you've dished pasta onto a plate, grab Ryou's contribution and toss it on top.

"When is it not?" Shiro asks beneath his breath. His spark of anger is nice. Warmth needles into your navel because of it, but you dismiss your body's involuntary awareness. You need to check a calendar. "We've been trying to map regions, but there's not enough patience in the universe for these people. We enlisted over a hundred of the universe's best cartographers that run the program from morning to night. People don't understand there are still things we have to do manually. Even our best AIs can't interpret the delicacies here. This is a project that will last years past my lifetime."

"If we learned one thing about politicians while fighting the Galra," you start, watching Ryou's fork touch your plate, "then it's that they're all the same no matter the species. It doesn't matter if the universe is at stake. They want theirs, and they want it as fast as possible, even if their intentions seem good."

"Ryou," Allura warns, reaching for him. "Leave other people's plates alone."

You wave her off. "He's not bothering me."

"Some of them believe we're children," Allura adds and tosses Lance a piece of flatbread. He catches it without looking up and dips it into the orange sauce. It's citrusy but spicy, and it numbs the roof of your mouth like ice. "They've taken the other four paladins' disappearances as a weakening of authority."

You stop in the middle of a bite and look at Lance. It's a direct hit. Subtle, without outward accusation, and very Allura in her final form. You take that incomplete bite and chew the noodles like your thoughts. "That's been said?"

"You're smarter than that," Shiro chides. That _tone_ kills whatever your body was aching for. "It doesn't have to be said. Splitting up was a bad look. Add on what the tabloids have said about you and Lance, and it looks like you both reject the IAPP."

"Shiro, we founded the IAPP," you impatiently snap, straightening and settling an arm on the back of your chair. "You, Allura and I started it."

Allura purses her lips. "The consensus is that Shiro and I started the IAPP. You can't take credit for something you weren't around to instate."

Lance stops chewing and stares her down. He erupts. "There's a difference between instating and building a palace."

Allura narrows her eyes at him, opening her mouth and pausing with her tongue forward. She breaks. "Do you _know_ what it's like splitting this responsibility between two people? Two married people with a child they never get to see? I missed my son's first steps speaking at an IAPP meeting. When he had his first fever, I was leaned over a table with emperors, delegating fair trade and unable to access updates on his health due to security. This isn't about building a palace, Lance. This is creating universal peace and unity. This is to ensure wars won't turn into tyrannies that wipe out whole civilizations. You know that. You saw everything as Blue Paladin, so stop posturing for your boyfriend."

"Not my boyfriend," Lance and you say.

"Irrelevant detail," Shiro digs, and you see his shoulders tense in defense of his wife. "We haven't slept in years for this administration."

You nod, realizing something. "So we're here because you need a vacation."

"So what?" Shiro tiredly asks. "I want to spend time with my son, Keith. Tell me what you have to say to that."

You and Shiro hold a stare, and the situation between you both is raw, spread leg and unapologetic at the dinner table with his wife and child. He's pinned you to a place where he knows you won't say what you're thinking.

"You are the Paladins of Voltron," Allura reminds you both, and you and Lance have stopped eating. Even Ryou is looking at his mother, concerned. "You've had your fun. Now we need you here more than ever. The universe needs you here more than ever. Shiro and I can't do this anymore."

"Do Pidge and Hunk know?" you ask, rapidly processing the lack of doors in the situation. You've never wanted to run from leadership. It's sinking in that's what you've done.

"They do. Pidge will be here in two days. Hunk in three."

"You couldn't ask for a better job," Shiro tersely says, eyebrows pinched and Ryou slumping against his arm. "You were both born for this. I understand why you left, but sometimes, I don't."

It's supposed to be directed at you both, but you look away from him as if slapped.

"Papa," Ryou says, asking questions he can't formulate yet.

Lance reaches for a glowing white pitcher in the center of the table. He inhales a sharp laugh. "I thought I was done drinking. I guess not."

"Would they listen to us?" you ask the monarchs. Your tone has shifted from offended to serious. "Would it make that big of a difference?"

"You underestimate who you are to the universe," Shiro gently says, but he's petting Ryou's head and not looking at you. "I wish you understood your influence. You're a born leader. Both of you have so much respect."

A decision shouldn't be so easily made, but then again, you suppose one of such importance would be the appropriate time for the breakneck agreements. Silence sits on the table, and you look to Coran who's remained quiet throughout the discussion. He's eating and gathering every iota of information from the moment. Finally, he gives you a well-meaning smile, but it's half-hearted, tired. Like Shiro and Allura, he's exhausted.

"It's not like I have a ship," you say. "I don't have my money yet."

"Keith," Lance snaps, trying to stop you before you do something irrational. "You have to think about this. We have to talk about this."

"What's there to talk about?" you ask in front of everyone. It occurs to you you're using the very tactic Shiro used on you, and you hate yourself for being so much like him.

There's so much to discuss.

Lance stabs a bite of food and reaches for his drink. His jaw rolls as he chews, eyes never leaving you. Eventually, regrettably, he shakes head. Lance lifts his glass to Allura, you and Shiro as if gesturing to three monarchs he sits beneath. You sense the sarcasm in his next words, and he's staring you down, betrayed. "Nothing. There's nothing to talk about. Let's do this. The Paladins of Voltron are reuniting."

"This will be a good thing," Allura promises him, reading his rage.

You know he was the one who wanted this first. He's only mad because you didn't talk to him about it, but this isn't a new occurrence between you two. It's all fine and good unless one leaps without the other.

"I'm sure it'll be good for some of us," he mutters.

Dinner plays out peacefully afterward. As do the next two days.

With good reason, Lance won't speak to you, but you know you're doing the right thing. To imply you have no choice but to stay is better than conceding, but in truth, that's what you're doing.

Allura has given you both a grace period. It'll apply to Hunk and Pidge once they arrive as well. After all, there's an enormous learning curve involved, and you're still attempting to figure out how to use your closet.

"Haircut."

"Stop it."

You're given a communicator watch that connects you to Allura, Shiro, and Lance, and once they arrive, will weave in the other Paladins. It's matte red and higher quality than the one you had before, but you're not sure you appreciate how it tracks everyone's movements. It's invasive, but then again, invasiveness is the essential element to successful Paladins. You were once comfortable with having little autonomy. You almost loved it, romanticized it. After Shiro and you discovered you shared the Black Lion's reins, nothing inside your brain was yours again.

Aside from meals, Shiro avoids you.

You have a feeling you'll be visiting the Black Garden alone.

"They really are overworked," you say to Coran after breakfast.

"The situation could be better," he agrees, patting your back. "Shiro told me to remind you about your meeting this morning. I'll send a map to the accountant's office to your watch."

"Thanks, Coran."

After the meeting with your financial advisor, your watch informs you Pidge landed. Your jaunt breaks into an unbridled sprint for the Blue Wing. Only seconds before, you were reeling over zeros lining bank accounts. Now, you're hinged on the joy of seeing a best friend after years of video calls and prosthetic talk.

You turn several corners, even grabbing one to swing yourself around it. Nearly missing an emperor, you yell an apology but continue racing down the hallway.

The Blue Wing's doors scan your face and burst open to accommodate your pace. You check your watch, but because Pidge isn't in the system yet, all you know is that she's on her way to the Blue Wing. She's unescorted because, unlike you, she's been inside the palace multiple times.

You skid to a halt, panting, and turn around inside the grand entrance's middle with crossed arms. You wait, body humming with excitement, happiness. Seconds later, a figure scampers into the long corridor and runs toward you. Bags are bouncing with its movements and making it look awkward, but you wait with a full smile and arched eyebrow. The being comes to a full stop in the doorway, breathing hard.

"Get a fucking bellhop, Shiro! Somehow, this place can afford to have seven, no, not seven. It can afford to have eight _,_ Shiro, literally _eight_  Balmera statues, but no. No bellhop. Not a one."

Shiro is nowhere to be found. If he's nearby, he's not letting his critic know.

Sporting sleek mustard goggles, Pidge stands weighed down by dusty duffels and a mauve satchel. Her hair is short, shaved close on one side, and on the other, slicked back by caked mud. As soon as she acknowledges you, she tosses down her bags that slam against the ground with metallic thuds. The dropped luggage reveals a purple fur jacket that sits cropped beneath the swell of her ribcage. You hate that you notice how it clashes with her tangerine ankle boots, but the way she looks like she was caught in a dust storm is more distracting. You note the dirt-smeared knees on her leggings and realize she must have been by Hunk's workshop.

You were informed she was arriving alone. You, and more importantly,Lance were promised she would be alone. Your empathy consumes all your excitement. If you didn't know Hunk was docking earlier than his first ETA, then you're certain Lance didn't either. That said, there's no time to sprint to his bedroom and gift him with a warning. Realizing this, you blind yourself to the prophetic bloodbath and return undivided attention to Pidge. She's looking you over, dissecting your form.

"Greetings, Captain Brick Shithouse."

You flash her a grin, and utilizing catlike flexibility, swiftly crouch down with one leg extended to the side. Your left index finger and thumb form the shape of an L and press to the side of your face, imitating a headset.

Suddenly, you have a southern accent. "Dr. Tater Tot Casserole, there appears to be an unidentified lifeform on the premises. I think you're going to want to see this here anomaly."

Pidge also drops into a low crouch. Mimicking static, she pantomimes unraveling a cord and lifts a headset onto her crown. Straight-faced, she clears her throat and answers. "Captain, uh, I'm going to need you to be more specific. As the inventor of the IAPP universal database, I am sure we have information regarding this mysterious creature. Could you give me a basic description?"

"It's..." You intentionally pause, building suspense.

Pidge waits. Pidge pauses for several seconds even. "Captain, are you okay?"

Your voice grows weary, thick. "I think I've identified this here species, doctor."

"Requesting identification."

"It's a tacky purple gremlin."

Pidge yell-laughs and shoots upward, dropping her hand. "Fuck you, Keith!"

You can't help but laugh, too. A natural wheeze rushes from your chest with it. "Fuck you, Pidge! What are you _wearing_?"

Using less caution than you did during your meeting with Allura, the two of you sprint across the grand entrance. Your bodies meet front-to-front with an ugly slam that knocks the air from your lungs, and when your arms swing around one another, you step back and lift Pidge. Warmth you forgot exists soaks your chest, not unlike heartburn, and your eyes are pricking, rushing with tears you order back. Not letting you go, Pidge flings off her fogged goggles. Her right eye pour tears. The mechanical eye, though nearly human in its aesthetic, remains bright and dry, glowing.

"Six years!" Pidge shouts. "How did we manage to go six years without seeing one another?"

"We're idiots. That's how."

A disembodied bellow like a bear's yawn rings through the corridor. You and Pidge tear apart and cup both sides of your mouths. In unison, you both howl. The bright sound dissipates into colliding echoes, but a loud caw drifts from the blue spiral staircase. The caw startles a smile from you, but it's the running boots smacking to a halt behind you that forces you to withhold laughter. A sharp gulp of air followed by a shameless lion's roar commands everyone to attention. You turn over your shoulder, and waiting at the top of the grand staircase, is Shiro. He's smiling, eyes alive with tenderness everyone matches, and it feels good. It's good.

You acknowledge Lance who's leaned over the stair railing.

He winks at you.

Subtly, you wink back and turn from him as if it never happened.

Shiro looks past you and Pidge. Whether or not he saw Lance, you don't know. It wouldn't be like Shiro to acknowledge something like that if he had. "Long time, no see, Hunk."

"Shiro, buddy, you look more and more like a dad every time I see you."

Hunk is a mammoth of a man, built in a way that looks like he could carry the universe on his back. Atlas personified, Hunk's hair is cut short, but the simplicity of his appearance is balanced by the robotic piece lining his jaw. During their final battle, Hunk had taken a blade to the cheek that nearly split his skull in two. It was Lance's timing (see: love) and Pidge's genius that had saved him from death.

Now healed and healthy like the rest of you, he's in a yellow and green sports jacket like your black one. It sits cropped over a white tank, and his fitted black pants are oil stained, tattered. As always, Hunk was working to the final second. He's still wearing silver work goggles on his head. Much like Lance, Hunk is rugged and would rather take a bullet than a razor to his face. You're endeared by their similarities.

"Is that the elusive Keith?" Hunk asks, dropping his bags with a suspicious, metal clunk. He leans over and uses his hand like a visor. You try not to smile. It's impossible. "Last I heard, you joined a band of space pirates with my ex-husband and were slaughtering drug lords. Then again, I also heard you two were dead, so I probably shouldn't read the tabloids."

"When will I ever get my name back?" Lance asks from the stairs, then leaned over with his chin in a palm.

Hunk has been calling him 'ex-husband' for years.

Hunk grins at Lance who's smiling back. Evidently, they like what they both see, and that makes you lick your front teeth in an attempt to hide disbelief. You exhale a quick 'wow.' Pidge does the same.

"When you stop being my ex-husband."

Lance laughs, but it's embarrassed. "It's gonna be a while then."

Shiro clears his throat, and Lance throws himself over the railing. He lands clean and fixes his watch. The Black Paladin descends the stairs and looks over the retired team, and his short-lived appraisal morphs into admiration. The four of you wait for Shiro to reach the final step and exchange knowing looks. Without words, without the need for verbal communication, you sprint toward Shiro. One by one, you tackle him with hugs he can barely brace for. The strength between everyone could have killed a lesser person, but Shiro reaches for Pidge's and your hair, pressing his face into Hunk's temple as Lance's presses his forehead against Shiro's bicep.

"There's just so much love here!" Hunk shouts. "And a lot of limbs!"

"So many limbs," Pidge agrees, voice muffled by Shiro's chest.

"Alright, you guys," Shiro says through the yells, but he doesn't let go.

No one lets go.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 15,000 words because why not? You know?
> 
> Also, listen to serpentwithfeet's blisters because it's the kind of emotional noise that really embodies my feelings for a lot of this story. It left me wrought. I love it when good music does that. It's a blessing.

As the statue loses its initial luster, Keith shifts his attention from it and approaches the scarlet rug of flowers. He crouches down to inspect an alien looking cluster of droplet-shaped blossoms that sing when the wind shakes them. Intrigued, Keith touches one, and the tear unhinges from its stem, suddenly slamming against the walkway. It smashes like crystal, and the ringing sound startles him into correctly standing. The shards melt away and stain the path like human blood, and Keith's shoulders are rapidly rising and falling through the scare.

This disconcerting imagery isn't lost on you, but before Keith can turn and ask if you saw what happened, you've turned your head back to the plaque and drifted your eyes across the text again.

_THIS STATUE AND GARDEN SIT IN HONOR OF THE RED PALADIN_

_Dedicated to one of five Paladins of Voltron who served to maintain the universe's right to freedom, Keith Kogane was the last standing Paladin in the final battle against Prince Lotor. This statue commemorates the seconds before the Red Paladin's closing strike that dismantled the Galra Empire's 10,000-year reign. Forever indebted to his sacrifice, Keith Kogane was registered as a Meritorious Apotheosis along with his fellow Paladins on 0005 A.G._

You remember this fight better than anyone solely because you were the only one left awake to witness it. Lotor had safeguarded this. He'd injected you with adrenaline to ensure you'd be conscious enough to watch your lover die.

You remember the fight every day of your life.

You can't escape it because it built your life.

He was bleeding. There was red and tepidity.

Red.

With a single thought, you're there again.

_God, you're bleeding so much._

Keith is bleeding on the throne room floor, and there's nothing you can do to help him. On his back, abdominals shredded as if he's crawled through a fence of fillet knives, he's panting with blood-matted hair and paling lips.

"Keith, get up," you beg, your voice distorted as if submerged underwater. An open Galra hand shoves your head down, and you scream as your bionic arm pleadingly flickers. "Keith!"

He's going to die, but they've carved through your Achilles tendons so you can't run for him. As a traitor to the empire, they want you to become the greatest example that's existed. He's going to die, and you're thrashing until sweat soaks your clavicles and burns your eyes, but you want to believe your fears are just fears and love is unbounded. Love is more than your shredded muscles and the blood pooling at your ankles. Love overcomes everything. You're literally a magical being, so why isn't love allowing you to beat the odds when it's needed the most?

_Our whole lives just for this._

_Shiro, don't think like that._

The blood bubbling at the corners of Keith's lips pop in warning, but he's never been one to listen to warnings. He's as unrestrained as a desert storm, has always been the granules beneath your nails and impossible to sweep out from under your bed, and in this moment, he's barreling across dunes in a rusted rage you will never understand.

Like tearing melted flesh off the stovetop, Keith slams his hand onto the black floor and forces himself onto his side, crying out in a combination of rage and fear. The universe is piteously kissing his shoulders, hoping and waiting for the miracle that is free actuality, but he's the last one standing. He is God, and he is barely twenty-two, but he's all that stands between good and evil and light and dark, and God is crying. He is crying.

Manic beeping.

"Do it for the universe!" you scream at him. "For everyone, Keith!"

_For you and you and you._

Presently, your wrist watch is manically beeping.

Work's call removes you from the memory, and suddenly, you're looking at Keith who's letting his shoulders sag at the realization you have to go. You don't want to find comfort in his desire for your presence, but you can't help yourself. To be wanted by Keith has always been a distinctly heartfelt sensation both platonically and romantically.

"Business calls?" he asks and ambles toward you.

"Business calls," you confirm.

Eyes darting down as he begins to point out the dead flower, Keith stops mid-gesture when he realizes the red is no longer there. He clears his throat and turns toward you. It's the softest he's looked since reuniting with you, and suddenly, his eyes are full of light. "Thanks for showing me around, Shiro."

"Anytime," you say and brush your bionic fingers through your bangs. Your chest aches. The last thing you want is to go. "If you have any questions just ask the staff. They'll help you, especially while you still have novelty."

After an indecipherable pause, Keith's expression drifts. He leans back on a foot and stuffs his hands into his pockets. "I want to see the Black Garden next time."

Your watch beeps again, and Keith looks past your head with a passiveness that tells you he's pretending he never said he wanted to see you again. You digest his suggestion with a long stare, and it takes every ounce of your self-control not to cancel work for the day and show him around. For you, having him back is momentous. It takes the wind out of every sail you previously had bobbing along the ocean and reorients your focus onto the water itself.

"Next time," you answer earnestly. All you want is for him to know you're there to try. "I'll make time for you."

He parts his lips, and you see the sting in your words. He rolls his eyes, but then laughs and steps past you, brushing against your shoulder with a slight slam. Only you two know this isn't _always_ an aggressive gesture. He once did it as a way to show affection on the castle's bridge without being too obvious to the others.

Keith drifts to inspect more plants, and after admiring his unreadable features for several quiet seconds, you turn with a wave and climb the stairs toward the patio. Only when you've slid the glass doors shut behind you do you bother to look back. You're struck by the sight of Keith seated on a bench and leaned over his knees. Even from where you're standing, the shudders and white knuckles in his hair stand out in the sea of red.

No one would believe you if you told them love caused this.

With opening and closing palms, you think to go back, but you don't. There are genuine reasons, though. One wrong conversation could send Keith fleeing, and anyway, it's too soon. It's disrespectful to consider, even. For all you know, Keith might not be interested in ever having a retrospective conversation about past mistakes and aches.

It's been years and turning your back on him like this still makes you volatile with yourself, but your watch beeps again. You're reminded your duties are far bigger than a painful goodbye that happened some seven years before, and with that tearing at your sternum, you abandon the doors for the study's core.

You slide your thumb across the watch's screen and a holographic image of Allura appears. She's smiling at you with a lopsided mouth. "What's taking you so long?"

"I'm walking as fast as I can. Keith wanted to see the Red Garden, so I showed him around."

She blinks as this settles in. "Did he see the Meritorious Apotheosis indoctrination? I've been dying to hear his feelings about it."

"Keith isn't the type to take kindly to being seen as a god. Being both Red Paladin and Black Paladin at the same time was hard enough on him. I don't think he ever forgave me for putting that on him."

"I'm more than aware, Shiro. That's exactly why I want to hear his thoughts."

You shift your eyes to the side and chew into your smile. "Nothing like scathing Keith commentary to make you rethink every diplomatic decision you've ever made."

"It saved the universe, didn't it? There's plenty of value there."

"Did I say there isn't?" you ask. "You of all people know I value Keith's opinion."

Before there's a chance to recover, you realize Lance is sprawled out on one of the den's couches. He's indolently smoking a joint, and when he sees you, doesn't bother to acknowledge you beyond a curt wave and mild ' _Shirogane_.' His coolness is clearly in defense of Keith, and you smile at him with a brusque ' _McClain_.'

"Was Keith with you?" he asks and Allura mouths ' _hurry_ ' before ending the call.

"He's checking out the Red Garden," you say and stride past him with a passively arched eyebrow. You have no intentions of pausing for a conversation just yet. Allura has ordered against it until both Paladins are settled into their roles. "Have you seen the Blue one yet? It's at the back of this wing. Yours is more fountains than flowers."

"That's where I was this morning. Meritorious Apotheosis is exactly what it sounds like, huh? I'd love to know who came up with that one. Sounds kind of Galra Empire if you ask me."

Your defenses flare, but you think better than to challenge Lance's mood. "It's Altean."

"I see," he says and unexpectedly smiles through an exhale of rainbow threaded smoke. His own thought has entertained him, but you're glad he's unclenched.

"Don't smoke around the baby," you say good-naturedly, and Lance winks at you.

He calls after you as you stride for the grand entrance. "Sorry, Shiro! Keith's used to me smoking around him!"

You laugh loud enough for him to hear, and you can't help but feel good knowing Lance has decided to call you ' _Shiro_ ,' and not regard you with military rhetoric. There's little object permanence to Lance's feelings.

The meeting you're late for is one that defeats you.

It's about the financial give and takes. It's about the 'what do we get in return,' and it's not in your nature to understand why people with the capacity to give and still live deliciously can't just give up their excess for the betterment of others. Your bones were grown in a socialist womb, and whenever you reiterate this to Allura, she's compromised by the whole concept and what it means for your leadership. It's too ideal, she reminds you, and better than anyone, you know it's idealism. Socialist Earth wasn't perfect. You're exasperated by the selfishness, though. Meaningless exasperation is something Allura has always had a difficult time understanding. It's due to her nature to immediately solve problems. It's due to how her identity is rooted in her leadership.

It's what makes the both of you work so well, though. Neither one of you knows yourself outside of your headship, and there's a special connection that's been fostered there.

"These people are going to let their own people starve for a map cut," you whisper to her when the room has emptied. "I'm never going to understand the rationale."

"We've seen much worse," Allura dismissively says and swipes through her tablet's files.

"That's what I mean," you continue. "We've seen the worst and stopped it because we couldn't make sense of it. I'm always going to have to ask why we can't work for the best as a unit. The way these politicians handle the next twenty years is going to set the tone for the whole administration's morale, and they don't care."

She stands, smoothing down her skirt. "Shiro, this is why they don't take us seriously."

You rub at your temple before also rising to your feet. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're waiting on them to come around through guilt, but these species have very different standards for empathy. We have to _make_ them listen, and we have to do it with you, me and the other four paladins standing tall. They're looking at this little _break_ like it's the end of Voltron's influence. Not to mention, they've noticed your repeated aggravation. You used to be so good at saving face, and now, you're an open book. It's _dangerous_."

It's not the time or place to remind her that your internalization and the emotional vacancy was derivative from trauma, and as it often does, you're startled by the fact she never knew you on Earth.

Anyway, for the longest time, you've attempted to understand her intergalactic political intelligence, but unlike her, you weren't raised to deal with multiple types of ego and the psychological disparity between thousands of cultures. This doesn't mean you're a novice at it, but her distinguished lens in it regularly causes rifts.

"From an outside perspective, it appears as if there's room for manipulability," you say, echoing yourself from a previous conversation. "We need Keith and Lance on the floor. I know."

"Keith is a tactical genius when he wants to be."

This makes you sigh. "He definitely wouldn't stand for half of these meetings."

You press your hand to door's keypad and watch it slide open. It reveals the Red Wing's central lobby where species from all across the board are striding toward meetings and offices. Above the white marble floor is a hanging red crystal chandelier that sends diamond-shaped speckles of flaming light across every surface.

After several seconds, you decide to add a thought. "We won't make him do something he doesn't want to do, though. He's never functioned that way."

"Humans have a stronger capacity for guilt, especially when spurred by someone who means a lot to them," she reminds you. "He'll do anything if _you_ make him feel bad enough."

"Allura," you whisper in reproach. The whole concept is distasteful. "I'm not doing that."

It's her turn to be aggravated. She clenches her tablet and turns her head to give you eye contact. "We're going to lose the IAPP if we don't get him in the door."

"There are better ways than breaking his trust."

As if suddenly turning off her soldierly light, she stops with a short exhale and closes her eyes. Allura lifts a palm and nods. " _I'll_ handle it then."

" _I'm_ mediating it," you say without room for discussion and descend the stairs toward the wing's exit. "Do it at dinner tonight. I don't trust you not to tug him into a meeting by his hair."

"You act like Keith, Lance and I weren't once very good friends."

She acts like Keith didn't once get you off in the Black Lion.

"It's been years, Allura. We've all changed."

Your marriage only works because you and your wife work together, and you don't know how to remind Allura that she's repeatedly swung the bat against her own team's emotions to accomplish goals. Again, you're capable of the same self-sacrifice, which is exactly why you don't expect her to handle Lance or Keith with warm hands.

The stress of this potential conversation manifests internally, and you find yourself slipping in and out of awareness until the topic is brought up at dinner. Even when Keith enters the private dining room with a tipsy Lance, you're doing your best to pay more attention to your son than Allura's potential meltdown. She's been losing sleep, and you can't remember the last time she let you touch her or thought to touch you. Her temper has been mounting for years, and you wish there was a way to warn Keith without betraying your wife's trust.

"Some of them still think we're kids," Allura says and tosses Lance a piece of flatbread across the table. He catches it without looking and dips it into the orange sauce. You realize this is your cue to begin listening in, and you glance her way mid-bite. "They've taken the other four Paladins' disappearances as a weakening of authority."

Keith stops, lowers his fork and looks at Lance. You exhale at the direct hit. It's subtle, without outward accusation, and very Allura in her final form. Keith aggressively takes a bite and chews the noodles. "That's been said?"

"You're smarter than that," you chide but reel it in. Keith is, though. "It doesn't have to be said. Splitting up was a bad look. Add on what the tabloids have said about you and Lance, and it sounds like you both rejected the IAPP."

"Shiro, we founded the IAPP," he impatiently snaps, straightening and settling an arm on the back of his chair. It takes everything inside you not to lash out before Allura. "You, Allura and I started it."

What Keith seems to forget is how the IAPP was built on the back of a mutual decision he turned on when he realized it was no longer convenient for his heart. It was never convenient for yours, though. It was never what you wanted, but as predictable as ever, you did it for him. This disregard for the very idea Keith himself conjured and his role in the current world state makes the food on your plate turn to ash. You reach for the edge of the table and let that off-color betrayal paint you red both inside and out. He's always done this to you, but you forgot until then.

Allura slowly exhales, not noticing your physical reaction. "The consensus is that Shiro and I started the IAPP. You can't take credit for something you weren't around to instate."

Lance stops his chewing and stares her down. "There's a difference between instating and building a palace."

You nearly pop your jaw, but your wife beats you to the punch.

She narrows her eyes at Lance, opening her mouth and pausing with her tongue forward to collect her fierce temper. You count down the seconds, and on one, she breaks. "Do you know what it's like splitting this responsibility between two people? Two married people with a child they never get to see? I missed my son's first steps speaking at an IAPP meeting. When he had his first fever, I was leaned over a table with emperors, delegating fair trade and unable to access updates on his health due to security. This isn't about building a palace, Lance. This is creating universal peace and unity. This is to ensure wars won't turn into tyrannies that wipe out whole civilizations. You know that. You saw everything as Blue Paladin, so stop posturing for your boyfriend."

"Not my boyfriend," Lance and Keith say at once.

"Irrelevant detail," you dig, but it still makes your palm sweat. "We haven't slept in years for this administration."

Keith snorts with a furrowed brow. "So we're here because you need a _vacation_?"

"So _what_?" you tiredly ask, and your attitude hinges on that last word. "I want to spend time with my son, Keith. Tell me what you have to say to that."

You hold a stare with him, and the situation between you both is raw, spread leg and unapologetic at the dinner table with your family. You've pinned him to a place where you know he won't say what he's thinking, but he has plenty to say about your son, wife and the fact you're a married man who sometimes finds happiness in all three.

 _He did this_ , you remind yourself as the guilt hails. _This was his design._

It's incredible to you how you can both love someone and hate them so much your vision becomes an abstract impressionist's magnum opus.

"You are the Paladins of Voltron," Allura reminds them both, and Keith and Lance have finally stopped eating. Even Ryou has turned to look at his mother in concern. "You've had your fun. Now we need you here more than ever. The universe needs you here more than ever. Shiro and I can't do this anymore."

"Do Pidge and Hunk know?" Keith asks as the panic creeps into his features. "Are they in on this?"

"They do. They are. Pidge will be here in two days. Hunk in three."

"You couldn't ask for a better job," you tersely say, eyebrows pinched and Ryou slumping against your arm in concern. "You were both born for this. I understand why you left, but sometimes, I don't."

It's supposed to be directed at them both, but Keith looks away from you as if you struck him and only him.

"Papa," Ryou says, asking questions he can't formulate yet.

Lance reaches for a glowing white pitcher in the center of the table. He inhales with a sharp laugh. "I thought I was done drinking. I guess not."

"Would they listen to us?" Keith asks you. His tone has shifted from offended to serious. It's almost as if he's comprehended what's at stake. "Would it make that big of a difference?"

"You underestimate who you are to the universe," you say with a corrected tone. Not wanting to look at Keith, you reach for Ryou's head and pet the baby hairs behind his pointed ears. "I wish you understood your influence. You're a born leader. The both of you have so much respect."

"It's not like I have a ship," he says as if coming to a close. While it is pragmatic, he's still irritated "I don't have my money yet."

"Keith," Lance murmurs with affection that bares their intimacy. "We have to talk about this first."

"What's there to talk about?" he asks in front of everyone, and for a second, you sympathize with Lance. He's not the first to be at the mercy of Keith's logical decisions that are impulse swaddled by cozy practicality.

"A lot," Lance breathes, but Keith sees through that.

Lance stabs a bite of food and reaches for his drink. His jaw rolls as he chews, eyes never leaving Keith in expectation, but eventually, he exhales with a shaking head. Lance lifts his glass to Allura, Keith and you as if gesturing to three monarchs he sits beneath. You sense the sarcasm in his next words, and he's still staring Keith down, betrayed. "Nothing. There's nothing to talk about. Let's do this, Red. The Paladins of Voltron are reuniting."

"This will be a good thing," Allura promises them, reading their rage but unyielding in the face of it.

She could destroy them both if she wanted to. She could destroy you.

There's a weak sigh from Lance, and you cut him a glum look. Though the details aren't clear, you suspect he had a lot to do with Keith's departure from New Altea. This has taken years to even begin to forgive. In many ways, Lance has had a hand in Keith's decisiveness since they were teenagers, and there's something reprehensible about the way Keith publically pulled that to pieces in front of an entire table. It's none of your business, though.

"I'm sure it'll be good for some of us," Lance finally mutters.

"We'll get you that house on the beach," you say, and it's the only way you know how to apologize to Lance. "It's doable. I'm sure."

Allura stiffens beside you, clearly not sure what you're talking about, but Lance softens his expression and takes a sip. He cuts you a quick glance that dissolves into a short smile you easily return. Keith, incapable of hiding his feelings, has deflated entirely and started feeding Ryou. The intimate gesture surprises you, but it's Lance who points it out with a sharp laugh. Keith manages to nail him in the face with a piece of flatbread, and you chuckle.

A long time ago, back on Earth, you heard the saying that there's poverty in giving away too much of your heart. This thought cycles through you for the next few days. It carves at your old void, and you're not sure where this emptiness started. Something tells you it began the day you stepped onto the Kerberos shuttle.

It's a fluctuating sensation dialed back and forth by the Paladin bond, though. You know this because, when you see your team together for the first time in seven years, you've never felt more whole.

"There's just so much love here!" Hunk shouts. "And a lot of limbs!"

They're a ragtag team of adults who've grown up together in a way that has fostered a found family, unlike anything you experienced with your blood relatives. No longer children of war but men and women with the universe cradled in their hands, you admire their sharpened jawlines, wise eyes and hardened shells that now protect petal-soft personalities. Even at their angriest, they all ask about one another or look to give you updates on one another.

"So many limbs," Pidge agrees, voice muffled by your chest.

"Alright, you guys," you say through everyone's yelling, but you don't let go.

Your heart is full.

You love them, and without question, would die for each and every Paladin. The warmth exuding from all of you brightens the walls of the Blue Wing, and suddenly, the pouring sunlight is brighter, cleaner.

Pidge is the one who wrenches free first. She reaches for Lance's bicep and smacks it. "You look good, but what is that thing on your face! A rodent?"

Lance strokes his goatee and flashes her a grin. He slicks back his hair. "It's called facial hair, Pidgeon. Speaking of rodents, do you take dirt baths now? You're looking _dusty_."

She playfully barrels toward him, slamming her chest against his and then letting him gather her up into a hug that's so tight it looks painful. They sway back and forth, laughing and making noises of disbelief. Lance pushes them apart, but five seconds later, they're hugging again and slapping one another's backs in a wholly composed rhythm.

From the corner of your eye, you see Hunk and Keith punch each other's chest, but Hunk grabs Keith's wrists and yanks him into a bear hug. Keith reciprocates it with shaking shoulders, but you can't tell if it's from laughter or tears. After a moment, Hunk happily yells in relief. It's wordless, but it sums up the general feeling entirely.

As if the Paladin connection had never been severed, a rush of acumen runs through your collective muscle tissue. You close your eyes, and one-by-one, the faces of the other lions appear within the pink-grayness. Convoluted thoughts not belonging to yourself whisper from the back of your skull and swell. There's a dreaminess to what becomes your teammates' cycling voices that never remain in one place unless willed to by the thinker himself.

Again, you're full, but the last time you felt this way Keith's mouth was hotly pressed to yours on the floor of a dressing room. It's why your first instinct is to take Keith's elbow and bend him back into a deep kiss. You rip yourself from the thought, but in the process of breathing in guilt, find yourself tearing open scar tissue. An internal sigh of aggravation follows, but when you look back to Keith, he's stopped hugging Hunk. Rather than chatting with his old friends, he's turned to you instead, lips faintly parted and an eyebrow arched.

_You've got a good memory._

Keith's voice ghosts through you and disappears like smoke.

There's a startling second where you think you've lost the capacity to talk back, but then you throw your thoughts toward the place in your heart he once filled.

_It was the last time I felt like this._

He turns his back to you and rests his arm on Pidge's shoulder, suddenly having a full conversation with Lance and her while directing his focus to you.

_Have you missed it?_

_I'm still trying to figure that out. Call me overwhelmed._

_Well, let me know when you do._

The connection drifts into quiet murmuring you can't decipher into individual parts. His tone was laced with indifference, but the words tell you he's genuinely interested in your opinion. You suppose it's inevitable. Out of all five of you, the two of you possess the strongest connection due to sharing a lion and having the capacity to switch out Red and Black chairs depending on mood and circumstances.

Having everyone back is strange.

It's how things are meant to be, but it's also something you told yourself would never happen again. You're not the only one who feels this way, though. What you think is going to be a grand reunion full of catching up turns into a strange disconnection where no one actually talks during the days leading up to the gala. In your head, you can feel the pining for friendship among all of the Paladins, but there's no longer the allowed reflex to act on it.

This isn't to say you don't talk to anyone at all, but it's stilted meals and weird encounters in the hallway. If you thought Keith and you had issues, then the uncertainty between Keith, Hunk, Pidge and Lance is luridly bad.

They discuss their work. They ask you where things are and how to set up accounts. There's the fleeting mentioning of properly assigned positions in the palace, but aside from that, it's rocky. You don't have the capacity to be delusional. You didn't think things would be anywhere within the same orbit as Old Times, but maybe you expected more from everyone. Maybe you had convinced yourself you hadn't done as much damage as you actually had.

Keith won't even look at you, but you can't blame him. He caught you aggressively recalling your tongue between his teeth on one of the bleaker days of your life.

"I expected you to be cheerier," Allura says when she catches you playing with Ryou alone in total seclusion.

"It's an adjustment," you explain, but it's really not much of an explanation.

A cloud of guilt rains on you the night of the gala. While having your hair done, you find yourself unwilling to look at your own reflection. Thankfully, the more material aspects of the gala begin to make you miserable.

It isn't often you ask God to strike you down.

Correction: It's been years since you regularly asked God to strike you down, but the hours before the gala make you feel young again. This is because you've been standing in your closet for an hour and a half arguing with the AI software Allura felt the need to install. Your aggravation is layered. On the surface, you're annoyed because you're bickering with a computer, but upon delving deeper, you're prickling because having a robotic stylist in the first place implies your wife has zero faith in your capacity to dress yourself.

Behind you, the closet doors slide open and you hear the distinct rustling of Allura's long white dress. You look over your shoulder, and as you often are, you're struck by her beauty and penchant for elaborate sparkles. There's no universal form to beauty outside of the general consensus stars are lovely, but you're yet to meet someone who thinks she's anything but stunning. You sheepishly smile and then look back at the holographic screen, deflating.

She laughs at you, and you don't see her grip the front of her dress to yank the plunging neckline up. "How are you still not dressed?"

"Your friend here is monitoring the percentage of black I wear harder than a parent threatened by their teenager's goth stage."

Allura pauses at your side and blankly blinks in your direction. You quickly realize you made an Earth-specific reference and wave yourself off, dismissing the comparison. With hands on your hips, you suddenly straighten your spine because you're accepting your defeat. You're going to the gala in black boxer briefs.

Seeing your growing frustration, Allura laughs beneath her breath. She reaches for the screen and passively swipes through the wide selection of formalwear.

You spot an outfit you can stand, and it gives Allura's plunging neckline a run for its money. It's a black velvet blazer with hexagonal designs patterned across the back, and it's tailored to fit every crevice of your body. Most of your clothing runs formfitting, but this is not only a fashionable decision to show off your body, but also, it's an incentive to stay in perfect shape. If you're not working or making time for your son, then you're training higher-up recruits to the IAPP's task force and making a point to stay as active as possible.

"That," you say, and you don't give Allura or the computer time to argue. You override the system by pounding in a code, and when the outfit is deposited onto the dressing table, you step into the pants and put the jacket on over your naked arms and chest. The blazer's invisible clasp gives it the perfect V-shaped neckline, and once again, you wonder why New Altea's biggest trend so far has been emphatically revealed cleavage.

"Do you know how long my makeup artist spent painting my face and then you put that on in two seconds and look immaculate?" Allura dryly asks, admiring you while also intentionally sounding bitter. You run your fingers through your fixed hair and straighten the lapels. "Everyone should be gathering in the entrance."

"Right. Let's not make them wait then."

As you offer her your arm, you think about fifty more important things that need to be happening that aren't this gala, but there's nothing you can do but grit and bear the formalities. Even Allura finds it pointless, but there are some traditions that can't be overlooked. That in mind, you consider the cost of the gala alone and other places the frivolousness's cost could've gone. It makes your stomach burn until you remember the Balmera Palace is a luxury pit you already go back and forth on condoning. It makes jobs, you remember. It's good.

Lance and Hunk are waiting in the entryway and civilly discussing the weather. They're dressed to New Altea's standard in white suits that borderline match. Pidge appears several seconds later in purple short shorts and her chest taped flat beneath a matching blazer. Its shoulder pads rival your paladin suit's shoulder armor and its back is sculpted to look as if triangular vertebrae are trying to pry free from between her shoulders. She doesn't give you time to comment, and instead, makes a snapshot gesture with her hands in Allura's and your direction.

"Pretty as a picture."

Allura shyly looks to the side. "Everyone looks nice. Where's Keith?"

"Probably trying to find a way to go missing," Lance says and checks his watch for messages, "or you know, _die_. I can tell him to hurry up. Maybe even drag him down the stairs by his hair."

"That won't be necessary, but thanks for always wanting to assist, Lance."

Keith's voice comes from above, and along with everyone else, you look toward the top of the red staircase. With one arm lazily draped along the banister, Keith is leaned over with all of his weight supported on a single foot. He's in a stark red fabric, but you can't see the design of his clothing yet. What you can see is the way his hair has quickly become a victim of the planet's immoral humidity problem. Though tamed by a shower and products, the dark locks have taken on a tousled look that causes even the small hairs along his ears to wave.

"We're late," you say. It's simple but with a warm smile.

He manages to smile back, and it almost appears smug. "I was admiring the view."

"We're a handsome crowd," Hunk says, but Keith hasn't taken his gaze from you. He eyes your chest and then questioningly narrows his stare, and you narrow yours back as if daring him to comment.

"Stop looking at the monarch's chest and come down here," Lance barks, and even you can appreciate the way he didn't specify you, your wife or whether or not he meant plural.

Acting as if he hadn't been stalling, Keith descends the stairs with a passive gait. He turns the center spiral, and when you see what he's wearing, you tighten your grip on your wife.

Beneath an off-the-shoulder black blazer is a red latex turtleneck that's actually a body suit. It's without sleeves, and the tight pants he's wearing are strikingly low to reveal the high cut of his suit's bottoms. What your eyes are drawn to are his hipbones, but that's the whole point of the outfit. It occurs to you he's the only one in the group bothering to cover up his chest, and you know this is his subtle way of rebelling against the sentient closet.

"Do you wax now?" Keith asks as he slides by you, giving you a bored once over.

At one point, Keith regularly asked you not to wax.

_Not everyone's as filthy as you._

He walks ahead and Allura looks at you with a raised eyebrow. "Did he mean your chest whiskers?"

Pidge loud laughs at the word 'whiskers,' and you're suddenly haunted by the memory of Allura grabbing your feet and asking why you have whiskers on your toes. Between that and the hair on your ass, you've been at the mercy of your own patient explanations one too many times throughout your marriage.

Lance runs a hand along the exposed skin on Keith's hip, and Keith shoves him with a smile.

"I have to know what those bottoms look like," Lance teases.

Keith counters, pushing back his bangs. "You don't have to know anything."

The gala is in the same room Keith and Lance first had dinner in at Balmera Palace. The tables have been moved to accommodate a dance floor post-dinner, and before you enter the main hallway, you can hear the music and echoing chatter. The group is silent as a whole, but right when you think they're contemplating their fate, Pidge turns on her heel in front of you and begins to walk backward to the slow beat of the music.

"Are you going to dance with me, Allura?"

Allura looks to you and flashes a cheeky smile. "I don't see why not."

Pidge calls over her shoulder. "Keith, will you dance with me?"

Keith's exhale echoes. "No."

"If he doesn't drink he won't," Lance corrects.

"My favorite thing about these events have always been how we're weird even by human standards, but they don't know, so we get to paint the attitude of the human race," Hunk says and he throws an arm around Keith's shoulders, squeezing one of his bare biceps. "Earth isn't going to know what to do with itself when it finds out."

Keith and Hunk's friendship surprises you for many reasons. Mostly, there's the fact Lance ran away with Keith, and well, Lance is Hunk's ex-husband. Keith goes back and forth with his gentleness with Lance, but he's been stalwart with Hunk since the end of their teens. It makes sense, though. They've both dealt with Lance.

You watch Keith reach and hold Hunk's wrist before he speaks. "Earth is fine being elevated by the fact humans saved the universe alone. They're going to jerk themselves off for millennia."

The six of you turn a corner into the elaborately decorated main hallway, and Coran is waiting for you with his tablet in hand. Dressed in a periwinkle suit, he grins as soon as he sees the six of you as a unit. He plants a hand on his hip, and his expression grows gentle. "Well, isn't this just a sight for sore eyes? As it should be, I think."

Politicians are filtering into the open ballroom's doors, and when you glance over your team, you notice Lance has reached for Keith's bicep. Pidge sidles up to Lance and his free arm settles on her shoulders as they walk in unison. For you, this is another gala, but for them, this is them sealing their fate. It occurs to you that they genuinely never considered the possibility that Voltron would be forever. Your heart breaks, but you're not sure why.

"If I can do this," Pidge says to the other three, "then you guys can."

"You're way out of our league," Keith promises her.

Hunk clears his throat. "I hate to break it to you, Keith, but you're a god in the universe's eyes."

No one but Hunk has said it out loud yet, but he isn't wrong. Allura lets go of your arm and gestures for you to join your team with Coran slowly appearing at her side.

"You belong there with them," Coran reminds her.

"I was raised for this," she counters. "These five weren't."

You ignore the whispers from those who have already spotted all of you, and you stride to Pidge's right. She reaches for your sleeve, tells you that the velvet is incredible quality, and you ease out of your nerves with a smile. As unceremoniously as possible, you guide the other four down the remaining hall and abruptly turn into the imposing ballroom's entryway. You're exuding confidence with an unbothered gait, but even you are struck by the number of people that appears before the five of you like a Galra fleet.

The floor is nearly impossible to see through the crowding. When someone shouts and creates a snowball of murmuring that echoes off the high ceilings, Lance nervously laughs beneath his breath.

You look to Keith whose eyes haven't left the crowd as if it were a conquerable enemy. He's still clinging to Hunk with white knuckles. This is a nightmare for him, and you know that.

_You'll be fine._

It's been so long since you've attempted to communicate with Keith like that on a whim that you're not sure if it even reaches him. He only responds when everyone has let each other go and the swarm of politicians and social ladder climbers are attempting to subtly encircle each of you. Keith plucks a glass of something green off a floating platter and shamelessly gulps it down with closed eyes and a furrowed brow.

_I know._

Instantly, the connection becomes static and you're separated.

"I think I forgot," Hunk vacantly says from beside you. "I think I tried to forget what we did."

Shiro watches Keith's tense back as an emperor tries to kneel in front of him. Keith grabs his arm and forces him back up, patting his arm and drinking more.

"I think we all did."

Allura retrieves you for dinner after your first couple of drinks, which you've managed to swallow down incredibly fast. Back on Castle Lion, you never drank. It was for awareness, security, etc. You never wanted to be caught off guard, but so much of you has changed since then. From what you've gathered, all of you drink more. Some of you, meaning Lance, have even regressed to a state of living that makes up for the time Voltron stole.

Keith is seated beside you at the dinner table, but he's quiet. Though he agreed to stay, it's clear he's rethinking his consent with how he's repeatedly gesturing for another drink. You look for Lance who would be better at softening his discomfort, but he's currently flirting with a waitress whose giggle sounds more like a song.

In the corner of your eye, you can see Hunk silently mocking Lance's flirting beside Allura who's fanning her face and silently laughing. Coran is pretending to be the waitress, and his bright eyes and mute giggling are unnervingly accurate. When Hunk opens his blazer more and leans back, running his fingers through his hair, you cough.

You suppose that's one way to stay entertained at a stuffy gala.

"People keep trying to bow," Keith suddenly says. His jaw is tight. "Not bow. Kneel. Like, prayer."

This pulls you away from Hunk's show. You clear your throat. "It's weird. I know, but you're an Apotheosis."

Keith doesn't like this answer. He kneads the edge of the table as you often do and your concern spikes.

"I killed someone for doing something wrong," he counters, and it's just that simple to him. Keith's plain goodness makes your ribs feel tight. "I did my job, Shiro. I did what was right. I'm human. I lost a leg."

"There were a lot of people who could've done what was right and didn't."

"Is that all it takes to make a god?" Keith whispers and traces the rim of his glass. He hasn't looked at you yet. He's too busy scanning the other dinner tables and avoiding eye contact. Finally, he lowers his eyes. "What about every good person who did try and was killed in the process? Divinity is just chance, Shiro."

"Divinity is overrated. I wanted to go back to Earth," you suddenly say. It falls from you. With Keith, that happens a lot. "I never perceived us as this."

That sentence is loaded, and Keith looks at you with a pensive gaze. "After Lotor died, I never felt more human. I'm not a god. Hunk is wrong. These people are wrong and don't know me or us."

"It makes sense you felt more human. We weren't allowed to feel much until the Galra Empire was gone."

"It's like an adrenaline headache. That's what the past seven years have been." Keith finishes his drink and the way he's talking is how you know he's already feeling his alcohol. He runs a hand down his face. "Was I different to you after I killed Lotor? Did you stop seeing me as a human being? You were _there_. Out of all of us…"

You wait for him to finish, but he shakes his head with a soft ' _I don't know_.'

Answering the question hurts you in a way you forgot things could hurt. It's the same tumultuous pain you felt when you locked yourself up in your secret study and threw a fit. "It didn't make me look at you differently. It made me look at the human species as a whole differently. You conquered your own spirit that day. I'll never forget."

His acrid laughter catches you off guard, and it's just in time for food to swing out on floating platters. "Why do you always know what to say? Why are you always able to say what people want to hear?"

You prop your cheek up on a palm and look at him with a searching stare. "I'm being honest. We haven't talked in a long time, Keith, but I only know how to be openly honest now."

His pupils literally dilate in knee-jerk anger. "Don't make me into your learning curve."

Pidge is directly to your left, and you know for a fact she's listening. It's the way she's stilled, and you can pick up on the slight change in her breathing. Understanding your next actions matter, you lean closer to Keith.

"I'm not, and I was never dishonest with you. We don't have to talk about this here of all places."

He softens upon realizing you're not going to respond to his anger. Keith tears his gaze from you, ashamed. The emotional output he's suffering through burns your skull and your eyes water in response. You've never understood how he doesn't physically react to the emotions in the paladin connection.

"I shouldn't have said that," he tries. You know he's trying very hard.

"It's not an easy night, and this isn't an easy situation."

It takes all of you not to tell him you're hurting, too. That, and when forced to think about it, the rage you put on the thought of him isn't healthy and fills you with a jadedness that sits on your heart like permafrost.

Keith picks at his food, and anxiety is radiating from him. He stands as soon as he's finished eating to linger and do his part, and Lance returns to his side for most of it. Lance is the perfect buffer, you notice. He deflects and he reconnects, and when Keith is obviously uninterested, playfully smacks his back to make him care. Keith is doing his best, but there's something about the evening that's clearly wearing him out more than most events you've seen him at. There's the chance he's just aging, but you're not sure.

"They keep asking about his leg," Pidge says interrupting your silence. She's out of breath from dancing with Allura for the tenth time and resting. You're known for sitting at these events, but you're always willing to chat with those who want to sit beside you. "Once we're a couple more drinks down, I say we make a break for it."

"Hold that thought."

Keith is nose deep in his glass, and you watch as a princess gestures at his right leg with bright eyes and a rapidly moving mouth. She's the daughter of one of the biggest pains in the asses the IAPP has dealt with. Protective as ever, you stand and abandon the table. You push through the crowd and appear between Lance and Keith. Smiling in greeting, you gingerly slip your grip into the crook of Keith's arm and reassuringly squeeze.

Keith jolts at the contact and glances at you.

"Excuse me, princess, but the Red Paladin is needed elsewhere."

His Galra ears spring upward in alert. "I guess I'll go where I'm needed. Excuse me."

You side eye Lance and walk Keith away from the situation. Only when you're out of earshot do you speak, holding Keith's arm and feeling out of body due to the fact he's physically there with you.

"Use your watch or the Paladin connection the next time someone is about to send you into a PTSD meltdown, Keith. They exist for more than chatting and games." You pull up the alert program and show him where it is in his settings. "I had mine made to contact Allura when people tried asking about my arm in public settings again and again. It became a nightly thing at one point, and it made me ill for months. You don't need that."

Ill as in mentally ill. Mentally ill as in you're not sure how your marriage survived it.

"Are we going?" Pidge asks when you return with Keith.

Lance is on high alert when he appears at your side. He doesn't bother to hide how he's eying the hold you have on Keith, and you levelly stare him down. Lance raises his head and smiles at you, but it's frigid.

"There's a club downtown," Lance says, knowing you'll hate it. "Actual dancing clubs and not whatever this gala is. People who move."

"Go and insult everyone?" you ask. Your hand slips from Keith so he can look through his watch's options.

"It's us. We'll insult someone no matter what," Pidge promises. You wish you could tell her she wasn't right. "Be a little more anal retentive, Shiro. I dare you."

You look back to Keith who isn't paying attention to the plans being made. Instead, he's swiping through settings, and it's when he stops swiping you notice his fingers are trembling. You suck in air.

"We'll go."

"Lance, find Hunk. Should we get Allura?" Pidge asks.

"It'll draw attention," you murmur as if coordinating a mission. "I'll message her as soon as we're at the club. She wouldn't come along even if I begged her."

Allura can't even eat meals with you most of the time. An evening out at a club in lieu of a gala is unheard of. Across the room, you can see her loud laughing with her friends, which she has many of. The friendships she's gained go against the very nature of your schedules, but unlike you, she's good at multitasking and making work an interwoven aspect of her life and not something that sits on top of it and suffocates.

"We're going to a club," you say to Keith who finally looks up from his watch.

His ears nearly smack against his skull. "No way."

You figured he'd say no. "If you go, then I can finally show you your new hoverbike."

Keith reaches up and slowly jabs his finger into your chest, then walking you backward. It's a playful gesture, but you only know this because his ears have perked back up. "Don't goad me like your son."

You flash him a grin and let him guide you toward the door with his finger pushing into your heart. "I don't need to goad my son. He does what I say."

In spite of himself, Keith manages to laugh, but you think it's solely the relief of being able to leave. He shoves you back a little, and you grab both his wrist and one more drink for the walk to the Blue Wing.

Upon finding Hunk, one at a time, you slip out of the ballroom. The plan is to return to the residential wing, change, and then sneak into the garage where the bikes are waiting. You make a point to have a staff member call ahead and let the club owners know you're showing up for the night. When that courtesy is taken care of, you change into black pants and a sleeveless turtleneck with boots.

Keith meets you first, and he's still wearing his strikingly red latex turtleneck, but it's beneath a new pair of black pants and a lighter black sports jacket. You're pretty sure your boots are the same brand.

"Why are you two like this?" Lance calls from the top of his stairs. He's wearing a tank top. "It's been years, and you're still dressing like each other."

Unbothered, Keith runs his hands along the scarlet latex that's clinging to his navel. "Where are you skin pants, Lance?"

"Flesh colored, Keith. Where's your gimp suit? Or is that what you made that outfit out of?"

Your brain begins to hyperventilate, but your expression doesn't change as you slowly turn your head and stare Keith down. "Really?"

Keith lifts his shoulders and looks to Lance as if deceived. "That's totally out of context."

"Right," you say, not sure how to respond when your heart is in your throat.

You think about your kinks, but you don't have too many. For the longest time, your kink was being alive and Allura isn't that adventurous. The latter surprised the hell out of you post-wedding.

"Is that supposed to mean something, Shiro?" Keith asks, proving he's not a god since the fear of God is written across his face.

"No. Should it?"

Lance cackles and leaps over the banister. You realize this is going to be his thing. "I forgot how much I like it when Shiro drinks."

"Oh, hey," Hunk casually says when he appears at the bottom of his staircase. "Keith and Shiro match again."

Like children playing pretend spies, you and the others avoid as many people as you can on your way to the garage. The previously consumed drinks make this difficult and bizarrely fun. Keith turns a corner too fast and you grab him by the back of his jacket only to send you both crashing against the wall. You laugh so hard it hurts, and he holds the front of your shirt to keep balance. Once steady, he pushes at your forehead, but when you reach for him, he's already dashed toward the next corner and knelt. Pidge is running toward him for an impromptu piggyback.

"Don't kill him!" Hunk yells.

Pidge and Keith hit the floor.

It's you who ends up giving the piggyback ride.

The garage doors open before you touch them, and one of the staff members is waiting with a presented box of keys. They're a line of thin crystals, color coded for each Paladin. After setting down Pidge, you snatch up the black one with a ' _thank you.'_ The others are too distracted inspecting their keys to notice the sleek hover bikes lined up in front of them. Yours is the only one that looks different, but there's reason for that.

Keith is the first to notice.

He begins to smack at your arm with the back of his hand, laughing in disbelief along with his teammates. "These are ours? This is mine?"

"One of yours," you correct as Keith strides toward the hover bike. "They were gifts."

He drapes himself over the red leather seat and visibly deflates as soon as his hands touch the handlebars. "I think I'm in love. I didn't know love until this moment."

"There's a word for that special love," Pidge says, piping up as she straddles her own seat. She rubs her hands together and turns over her ignition so that she can access the computer.

"Mechanophilia!" Hunk shouts and is already turning an engine over as well. He loud laughs when the holographic screen appears and tints his face bright green.

Keith strokes the bike's body. "I love her. I don't want to fuck her."

"So shallow, Hunk," Lance adds and inserts the blue crystal that makes his bike roar to life. After the initial sound, it softly purrs, and he pats its side like a faithful stead. "Love and sex are not mutually exclusive."

"Uh, Ex-husband, you are sure one to talk!" Hunk snaps and is already inputting coordinates for the entire team. "Shiro, what's the address for the club we're going to? We're drunk. No one is actually driving these."

You tell him and Keith's attention has shifted from the red bike to the black one parked beside his. He dismounts from the one he just finished imprinting on and strides toward yours, inspecting its body. With a grin, he plops down onto it backward and faces you, kicking up a booted foot and letting his arm drape along a handlebar.

"Yours is nicer," he says and you roll your eyes to the side before smiling. "Do we get to switch out bikes, too?"

"In the spirit of old times?" you ask, and when he chews his cheek, you know he's drunk. His mind went elsewhere, and while your intentions were innocent, your sudden thoughts no longer are.

"In the spirit of old times," he confirms and then smoothly spins around to pull up the bike's specs on screen. After reading through them, Keith grins. "This bike is pretty cool. Invisibility, Shiro? Really?"

You approach his side and input a code so he can better access the secret features. He lifts his hands and begins to furiously type, pausing to wordlessly point out certain details and grunt at you until you nod in agreement. "I'm going to have to add invisibility onto all of yours, though. People are going to treat you like Earth celebrities here. Maybe worse. I haven't bothered yet because I figured everyone would want the space to customize. It's easier to start from nothing on these things. At least, it is for our mechanics. I'm not sure about Hunk and Pidge's standard."

"How bad are the tabloids here?" Lance asks while smoothly sliding on a pair of blue wraparound glasses meant to better control the bike itself. He darts his gaze to the right and his headlights flood the wall in front of him.

"I've had six affairs," you say, clearly unimpressed. "Allura didn't give birth to Ryou, but a Galran princess we're yet to have a name for did. I also murdered you and Keith, and apparently, Lance, you have a newborn. Hunk is running an espionage group from his moon workshop, and Pidge is behind unethical medical research inside the Balmera Palace's Green Wing. She's been abducting people for years now."

Lance whistles and Pidge cackles at that, but you notice how Lance is pale. He scratches the back of his head and shakes it with a soft ' _idiot_ ,' but he doesn't elaborate. Keith also tenses, but he doesn't say anything to allude to why he would. Anyway, there's a final feature you want to show him. It requires sitting on the bike itself. Exhaling out of the tense moment, you swing your leg onto the seat behind Keith and settle in. He stiffens in front of you, but after a second, he relaxes and looks over his shoulder with a closed mouth lick of his teeth.

"There's another feature that's really important. When you grab the handlebars," you begin and scoot closer, "and press these buttons here simultaneously, a barrier pops up. These bikes can usually detect when something is oncoming, but it's a secondary measure. We have dangerous enemies right now because of this mapping fiasco."

Keith slides his hands over yours, and you keep a pointedly concentrated expression. He himself looks as professional as a cadet at the Garrison. Humming, he glides his thumbs over the subtle black buttons.

"Can I try it out now?" he asks, genuinely wanting to know.

"Push the black crystal in and activate the Balmera engine first. The bike has to be on to activate the barrier. It's a detail I want to get around, but we're still working on it since it's charged by the engine crystals."

Until then, you didn't think you were drunk, but when Keith retracts his hands and you naturally go to set yours on his thighs, it occurs to you just how much you coped with your glass. Keith doesn't acknowledge the way your fingers accidentally ghost his hips. Instead, his ears flick back in determination and he opens his palm for the crystal. After you hand it over, he reaches down and shoves the crystal in, bringing the engine to life.

It rumbles between both of your thighs, and you remind your body not to shift forward. You're a good husband with a wife and child, and even if you're on the brink of skin hunger, you can't humor the fantasy.

"Try it now," you say and realize you're leaned over his shoulder, chin nearly settling on it.

Keith's breathing no longer seems as even as it was before. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," you say quietly.

He presses in with both digits and the bike jerks forward. The thrust makes the both of you press your lips into thin lines, but Keith keeps the moment streamline by eying the screen's scan for enemies. A black sphere encircles you both with a soft _blip_ and the others yell in surprise and approach its sides to tap. You can see through it, but any onlooker can't see inside. It makes being pressed to Keith less of a self-conscious issue.

"Cool," Keith says as you reach in front of him turn the map and show him how the sensors are picking up the nearby bikes. "We can always find one another?"

"There's a system to turn it off," you reassure him. "But it requires codes."

"Doesn't really matter if we're all connected to begin with."

He's not wrong, but you also know Keith and Lance have figured out how to steel their hearts to the Paladin connection. "It's always good to have a Plan B."

Keith smiles at that for reasons you can't read and the force field disappears. Pidge has knelt down beside it to inspect its integrity, and once no longer able to, cuts you both a deep frown. Keith mutters an apology and reaches out to ruffle the loose side of her hair. She pretends to bite at his fingers but stands so he can swing his legs off the bike's seat and return to his own. The lack of body in front of you gives you a sudden chill, but you ignore it as you watch him walk away. Keith's suit affinity is a predicament, you decide. His ass is like two bowling balls.

By the time you're properly seated, Hunk has already switched you to autopilot. You signal with your bionic hand, and the garage doors crank open. With a small shake of the head, you push on your pair of black wraparound lenses. You turn on the open channel and can already hear Lance laughing with Keith.

"What's the club like?" Pidge asks as your bike guns forward with a gratuitous rev. As soon as you enter the damp night air, you run your fingers along the back of your neck, feeling much calmer than before. The other four bikes are loud behind you. "Does the dancefloor float? Is it one of those places where the drinks have personalities?"

You shift your weight as your hover bike careens around the curved pathway toward the main highway. It's jam-packed that evening. Though many weren't invited to the gala, the celebration of having all five Paladins back together has permeated the core of the city. It's an excuse to party. "There are a lot of neon lights and several floors. I've never been, though. We're going to be escorted to the top floor and kept mostly out of sight."

"It's like we're famous or something," Hunk says, pleased with himself. "What did we do again? I can't seem to remember. I think we might be special or something, but like, I never know for sure. Taxes take up a lot of time."

"Saving the universe was just a side hobby," Keith jokes, his gravelly intonation eating at you.

"I lost my leg for fun," Lance mocks, deepening his voice to imitate Keith's smoky tenor. He lightens it before he continues. "Actually, my mechanical heart was a cosmetic surgery."

"Not funny, guys," you try, but you're laughing. "It's not funny at all."

Keith hums and kills his autopilot. You open your mouth to protest until he appears at your side and turns his head to look at you. "Lighten up, Shiro. Isn't that why we're here?"

You turn to look at him and quirk a corner of your mouth. He looks good in the red glasses. "It's to equally distribute business, Keith."

He smirks. "Says the man on a hoverbike on his way to get shitfaced."

The five of you weave in and out of traffic. Recognized by colors alone, smaller aircraft beep their horns in your direction and flash their lights. Some lean out windows to shout, but you keep going to avoid the off chance paparazzi will catch wind of your rare in-city appearance. All of you could outfly them sober, but you're not sober, so it's a different kind of rush you order Hunk and Pidge to navigate the five of you through.

Alforis' central hub is an urban dreamscape unmatched by any Earth city you remember. With advanced technology, the IAPP was able to fund one of the quickest construction projects you've ever seen. Several of the main Balmera crystal skyscrapers exceed the height of the tallest buildings from your home planet, and they're the keepers of a multitude of offices and department stores. Many of these you're yet to take the time to visit, but with the responsibility officially being split among all the Paladins, you hope to get to know what you've helped make.

"I'm getting some NYC vibes here," Hunk says as you five take an exit into downtown. You bolt past restaurants, other clubs and swarmed sidewalks. There are galleries, cultural centers and embassies crammed together on every corner. Some of the largest and most prestigious buildings are conservation museums memorializing what Zarkon erased from the universe, but most are yet to be finished. "I'm suddenly really interested in the economic distribution here. It's supposed to be socialist, right? Looks kind of United States here if you ask me."

"Not enough product advertisement," Keith corrects and floats his bike in front of yours. "Shiro, are we parking in the garage?"

The garage is behind the third tallest Balmera skyscraper. Underground, the bikes lead you toward its hidden entrance that opens and reveals a ramp. It promptly closes behind you with a slam, and you and the others drift toward the valet who's waiting outside a wide transparent elevator. One-by-one, you dismount your bikes and toss him and his coworkers the crystal keys. Keith's arm is wrapped around Pidge's shoulders and Hunk and Lance are softly bickering about what the better brand of Nunvill is.

"I'd love to know what it's like to always be wrong," Hunk murmurs beneath his breath. "Vanilla and yitzbill berry infused Nunvill is the superior flavor, but I respect your need for that suspension of disbelief."

"Are you doing this right now?" Lance asks, but he's smiling at Hunk who's inspecting his nails. "Either way, I could drink you under the table."

Hunk shrugs. "That sure sounds like a personal problem."

Keith, Pidge and you exchange knowing looks but look away solely to privately roll your eyes. Lance and Hunk have been separated for nearly seven years. While you were getting married, they were requesting to be placed on opposite ends of the wedding party table. Having tempered into civility, the bad blood is still evident, and you're already dreading the eventual implosion between them both. Their relationship's demise makes sense to you only because it happened as a kneejerk response to nearly dying, but it's still disappointing. Had they given themselves more time, then you have a feeling it could've lasted. Then again, what do you really know about relationships?

Your eyes drift to Keith and then back to the elevator that's rapidly ascending to the club's floor. Before you've reached the landing and security check, the pounding music is slamming itself against the soles of your feet. In some ways, you're dreading this excursion, but this is mainly because you haven't unclenched since you were in your early twenties. It's pathetic to you, but you've fallen so far from fun that you don't even know if fun is fun for you.

There's a lot to unpack there.

"I don't do this a lot," Keith says, and it takes you several seconds until you realize he's talking to you. "Lance does, but he rarely convinces me to go along."

"Not my scene either," you say reassuringly as the elevator doors slide open.

A blast of glimmering white and purple neon light greets you, and the bleeding pinks just beyond the security guards remind you of the interior of Galra ships. You erase this association when a humanoid alien with an ass the size of two watermelons walks past the entryway and Lance shamelessly leans to get a better look. You look at the ceiling and twist your mouth to the side into a smile. Security checks your identification cards, instantly pale, and then raise their communicator watches to alert management you've finally arrived.

They usher you ahead to three escorts who are mouse-like female figures with pastel skin and mint fur. Their faces are narrow and recognizably human to you, and they even have human-looking skin texture, but the rounded ears on the tops of their heads, sharp noses, and narrow tails give way to the separation.

Lance and Pidge begin to chat them up immediately. Though once considered unbearable to her, Lance and Pidge developed a strong loyalty to one another during their final years piloting Voltron. Both have adopted one another's habits, but Pidge's capacity for flirtation still startles you. She'll forever be a little sister in your eyes.

You're guided up several flights of stairs that remain invisible until the escorts touch them with their white go go boots. As you climb the circular expanse, you're able to see just how massive the floating dancefloor is. It's pink and brand new with a shoehorn-shaped bar that's unbelievably crowded and lined with pink tubing. There's glitter drifting from the ceiling, but as soon as you reach to touch it, your fingers disappear through it.

"Don't worry, your highness," one of the escorts says, having noticed how you rubbed your thumb and forefinger together. Her voice is whispery but somehow you can hear her over the bass. You're immediately interested in the technology. "If you want to make a mess we have the paint rooms upstairs. After we show you to the private room, then we can find all of you passes. It's a personal favorite. Everything glows there."

Pidge lifts both of her hands only to high five Lance. "We're so going to the paint room. No one gets to back out. We're going to dance in glow paint."

"Will I ever have enough to drink to do that?" Hunk asks the room.

"Want to go to the paint room, Shiro?" Keith asks, voice comically dry.

You shrug with lifted palms and this surprises Keith. "We'll see."

The private room is hidden behind a pair of illuminated black doors. They slide open when the escorts appear in front of them and raise their hands at the same time. Behind them is a single circular room with a round table placed in the middle. There are already tiered racks stacked with glowing shots inside thin tubes. The table is built out of faux-Balmera crystal and its surrounding seats are purple floating benches.

You unzip your black riding jacket and reveal thick, naked arms and a bionic hand. Tossing the jacket onto the nearest bench, the escorts don't shy away from looking you over. This makes you smile to yourself, hand dragging along the back of your neck. After specific drink orders and a request for paint passes, they disappear and leave the five of you to your own devices. You're suddenly aware of the situation, but you're not the only one.

"This is surreal," Hunk says and grabs a tube, sniffing it and then tipping it back with a shrug. Keith appears at his side and pounds down his first drink there. He doesn't bristle and goes for another.

"Which part?" Keith asks as the others crowd the table. You're the only one hanging back, sipping on your obligations to your image. "The fact we're back together or the fact we got Shiro through the front door of a club?"

"I'm just surprised as you are," you say and slowly approach his side. Your eyes lift to watch his ears instinctively flick back and forth toward the differentiating beats from the dance floor below and you smile.

Pidge grabs her own drink and leans forward, sipping it at first and then tossing it back. She squints at you and hums as she reaches for more. "Are you drinking more? You've got to drink more if we're painting."

"I never agreed to that."

"I love it when he thinks he's gonna get away with being a stick in the mud," Lance murmurs and grabs Keith another drink. Keith and he clink their glasses. "Some things really don't change."

"I'm an emperor," you say, deflating into what Keith once called your 'pout.' You tilt your head to the side and sigh. "I can't publicly drink like this in a club."

Keith shifts his weight onto a single foot. "Did you really come here to babysit?"

"Nope. No," Lance says. He grabs a purple shot from its holster and offers it to you. "Peer pressure, Shiro. Peer pressure."

Pidge slams her fist onto the table and begins to chant ' _peer pressure_.' When Hunk joins her, you know you're alone in your grownup corner. After a reluctant reach, you snatch the shot from Lance's hand and cut him a challenging look. He waggles his thin brows at you, and when you do it back and wink at him in mockery, he whistles. Keith frowns, and there's a strange satisfaction in that you refuse to overanalyze in such a light environment.

"Shiro, my man!" Lance yells when you finally knock back the smooth alcohol. It slides down your throat with a gentle burn, and you reach for a second one much to Lance's delight. "Now this is my kind of emperor!"

Keith reaches for a red one and hands it to you. You two share a knowing smile and then laugh before looking away from one another. "It's the best flavor."

"Red is always the best," Lance mocks and continues drinking strictly blue shots.

"Did you see this?" Pidge asks and lifts up the menu none of you bothered to order drinks from. In the center of it is a drawing of Voltron and overlaying it is a rainbow drink in a hurricane glass. "We have drinks named after us."

"Shut up," Lance says and snatches it from her hands. He flips it to the Blue Paladin cocktail, and for some reason, his following laughter is almost sinister. "It tastes like the sea, and it's basically a martini. Ex-husband, look at the bubble. Do you have to pop it? You _do_. Well, damn. I'm ordering one of these as soon as they come back."

Hunk reaches over his shoulder and takes it, hunting down his own cocktail. "Mine starts out as a thick yellow foam like a latte and then turns into Jell-O. Kind of looks like a parfait. Pidge, not trying to hurt your feelings here, but yours so looks like a radioactive plasma. Like, we'd drink this and get cancer the next day."

"I'm going to chug seven," Pidge says as flat as possible and tries to tug the menu from Hunk's hands. Without looking, he raises it out of her reach and you promptly snatch it from his hand.

You open it to the Red and Black Paladin drinks, which are conveniently side-by-side. Keith and you lean over the pages with raised brows and unimpressed downward stares.

"Red's is _fire_ ," you tease and he elbows you. Keith's drink comes as an unnaturally red flame in a shot. It claims to turn to liquid as soon as it touches lips. "It turns your tongue black when it…"

You both stop and stare at it the description, reading the rest in joint silence.

"Really?" Keith asks beneath his breath. "This is what they came up with?"

"It's common knowledge we could pilot each other's lions," you say, trying to talk him down before he's fully aggravated. You reach for another shot followed by one more.

"The black one comes in a smoking bowl," Keith says. "It's big."

"Ain't that the truth," Lance says, and it takes you two seconds to get the joke. As soon as you do, you wonder how he would even have that information. "We're ordering all of these."

The escorts return with the passes to the paint room and your first round of official drinks. They're quickly informed of the next order, and you take a seat at the table while nursing your plain clear liquor on purple ice. It's pointedly strong, and as the others ask about Lance and Keith's quintessence busting adventures, you cross-examine their synchronized mannerisms for the hundredth time since they've arrived.

You wish you'd stop. It's been years since you've let your eyes wander onto anyone but your wife and the revulsion you feel with yourself is overpowering.

That said, when was the last time you weren't around a human man who wasn't Hunk or your best friend from school? Watching Keith and Lance flirt back and forth through their passive aggressive quips forces you to acknowledge it's been years, and you lean forward for another drink with a slow exhale. You're long past caring about your sexuality or how humanity's socialization once impacted your sexuality, so what you're struck by is solely Keith and Lance's aesthetic together. The thought of them fucking makes your skin ripple in irritation but the intrusive desire to see it happen causes a rush of panic to seize you. Anyone touching Keith still makes your stomach sour, but they're both undeniably striking, muscular and have the muscle memory to make one another moan.

Calling yourself a hypocrite would be kind.

If you weren't married, were drunk enough and had the capacity, then you know you'd consider sleeping with them both at the same time. It's simply not your disposition. You've always been more interested in one-on-one.

It's a nice fantasy, though. It's something to jerk off to.

The Paladin drinks are as tacky as you assumed they'd be, but that doesn't stop everyone from passing them around. Hunk's is the favorite due to the way it slides down the backs of tongues but watching Keith literally eat fire is the real novelty. Lance and Pidge help you finish the bowl of smoking black juice, and as you exhale from your nose after each sip, a white and blue marbled cloud of thick smoke rolls free from your nostrils.

You, Pidge and Lance laugh in surprise the first time it happens, and you can't remember the last time something so simple made you laugh out loud.

You've missed them. You've missed them so much.

By the time you're done drinking at the table, you're feeling human in a way you haven't in years. The comradery takes you back to a point in your life when there was something more than Voltron. Though it's years long gone, you used to discuss returning to life back on Earth post-war. You had plans that hadn't yet included the sheer enormity of your situation, and you miss that simplicity. You miss the blissful ignorance where you wanted things.

As a unit, you step out of the private room and into a crowd. The moment someone recognizes Keith there's a series of shouts and excited murmuring. He pretends he doesn't hear his name and strides alongside you, stretching his bare arms above his head until his shoulders pop. He's always hated being seen by anyone but his team.

There's no getting around the fact you're hammered. You've been drinking since the start of the gala, and now you're neck deep in a club you know doesn't back down on its drinks. Your steps are even, but Lance's hand on your bicep feels good, and when he asks you if you always wear leather pants that tight, you wrap your arm around his neck and give him a noogie. He loud laughs at you and Hunk swings an arm around your shoulders.

"Shiro," Keith says, and it's warbled but you can hear the laughter in his voice. "Shiro, you're drunk."

The paint room.

In the morning, you guess it's the place where everything begins, but in the moment, you're convinced it's nothing more than a proper reunion with lifelong friends.

Two double doors open as the five of you approach and the black light hits you like a blade through the chest. Suddenly, you're no longer seeing flesh tones but a mass of neon-speckled beings wildly moving to an upbeat tempo very different from the clubbing downstairs. A spray of fluorescent paint is shot onto each and every one of you, and Pidge is already smearing green paint onto Keith's biceps. She grabs his elbows and guides him into the crowd.

There are splatter bars where people are smacking their hands onto the tops and coating themselves and friends, and the black walls are smeared and flecked in a spectrum of colors. There are caged dancers covered in paint, and when they kick their feet, a rainfall of colors that refuse to mix shower the crowd below. It's a tri-level bar, and it's unlike anything you've seen before. Flashing lights in colors you never saw on Earth strike your focus.

Hunk pointedly flicks paint onto the white of your hair and shoves you after Keith and Pidge, drunk enough to be laughing and suddenly enjoying himself. You see Lance impishly shout something at Hunk while wildly gesticulating, but to your surprise, they both flash one another grins and nod. As if they like one another again, Hunk pushes back Lance's head and Lance lets him before taking his wrist and guiding him away from you.

People identify you quickly, but it doesn't keep them from dancing and touching you for bragging rights. Keith and Pidge are dancing together, but it's not the first time you've seen them drunkenly flirt. Letting them have their moment, you barely notice when Lance appears in front of you. You're forced to ignore the mixed feelings his body on yours gives you, and you smooth your hands down the front of his chest when Hunk appears behind you. For you, it's easier to dance with two people you spent an eternity with versus strangers.

Pidge jokingly takes Hunk's place at one point, and you laugh so hard your abs hurt. She turns you around and then switches out with Keith who approaches you with committed steps.

It makes sense because you've danced with everyone else at this point, but suddenly, everyone else is gone.

Dragging a hand down the left side of Keith's ribs, your face is pressed to his jawline and your bionic hand is smoothing down his Adam's apple and toward his flat stomach. He reaches for your paint-splattered robotic fingers and guides them toward his hip, encouraging you to grip tight. The gesture is familiar, and when you remember why, you grit your teeth to keep from kissing a path down the nape of his neck. In your mind, habits aren't supposed to be this stubborn, but maybe it's a disservice to what was between you two to simply call it a habit.

Not a habit, but an unfair continuation of energy. It's basic physics that energy doesn't dissipate and replaces itself within itself. The two of you were once nothing but pure vigor catapulting through the universe with the confidence of meteors, but one of you was a meteor that had never faced the burn of entering an atmosphere.

"Shiro," Keith mouths. You can't hear him over the music. You can only see how his lips remain open after the final vowel in your name.

You don't want to be this.

You don't want to reason this.

You don't want to do this.

But only one of three is true.

He cuts you a look from the corner of his eye, and it's feral. It's also inebriated, but the fact you greet it with your own cutting gaze empties your own intoxication between you. Something tries to tell you that this man is now a stranger, but he reaches back for your hair and grinds his ass against you until your body responds by grinding back. At the same time, the two of you sheepishly smirk and then laugh as if exasperated with each other. Your eyes momentarily linger on the neon green paint along his bottom lip, but you retract the line of focus for strictly dancing.

It's weird to do as just friends, but you also did it with Lance, so maybe it's just weird to do with an ex. Not an ex either, though. Keith was your best friend and comrade for years. You held him in your arms when he was bleeding out after decapitating Lotor, and you promised to never leave him no matter what happened. At that point in both of your lives, you believed he'd be your person forever. You were both too old for it to be a childish expectation, so maybe that's why thoughts of you and him still knife you when you least expect it.

Love.

Again, no one would believe you if you told them your downfalls were all because of love and devotion.

The fabric of relationships is not woven by ideations of love but what the state of being in love brings out in people. You always brought out the best in one another until you forgot there are two voices in relationships.

Keith dips and you follow him because the Red Paladin has always been your leader. Not thinking, you reach for the ponytail above his nape undercut and pull it loose so you can hold a fistful of hair. He purrs beneath the grip, and it occurs to you that you're not on the brink, but actually, the definition of ' _skin hungry._ ' You don't fault your wife for your cultural differences with touch, affection, and love, but being able to grab Keith and feel him intoxicates you more than the act of drinking. With thickened breaths, you tug Keith even closer and he cups a side of your face.

"Shiro, I want to talk."

"I want to talk too."

It's then the colors around you both turn into a vapid blackness that somehow feels more like air than an actual blanketing. There are sounds, and there are exchanged words and hands that touch warm bodies. Your brain thaws with Keith's passive tone and soft slurring, and you keep noting every single time you easily laugh in his presence. The blackness is sometimes disturbed by beams of color, a good beat and then the splash of paint across your face. There's even a moment when you feel hands going down, down, down, and you don't physically stop them.

"Keith, where's Lance?"

"I don't know. I don't know."

Keith's voice is tearing.

He won't tell you why.

_Let's go home._

_I don't want to go home. Not now._

_You can kiss your son goodnight._

_What about you?_

_I should sleep. I'm going to sleep._

The sun is rising when the insipid darkness becomes a deadened weight. Somehow, you arrive home, but that's all you know about the journey. You're home, and after that, there are red blankets and several voices intermingling. One is your own. You're carrying conversations you'll never remember without having its entirety retold, and it amazes you how the brain just forgets. It loves to forget.

"We have to do that again," Lance says as he strips behind you. "We have to do that once a week."

"I love not dying," Hunk counters and Lance throws something at him. They both laugh.

Pidge groans but abruptly cackles. "There goes Shiro. He's dead. Gone. Rest in peace, Black Paladin."

"And there goes Keith," Lance adds, choking on a laugh. "Someone help them out of their clothes. Pidge, get Keith. He'll punch me if I try to do it."

You're on a mattress.

You're on a mattress, and in a single heartbeat, there's nothing else.

_Touch me a little more._

It's dark.

You're so happy, and then, there are the suns.

_More._

The next afternoon, you wake up on Keith's bed, but you're not alone. Hunk, Pidge and Lance are semi-dressed and strewn out across the lunar mattress. To your left, Lance and Pidge are curled around one another, and at your feet, Hunk is snoring on his back. You're on your side, and Keith's face is pressed against your chest with your bionic arm slung around his naked waist. The both of you have the least clothes on, but at least you're still clothed.

One of Keith's ears flick when you shift, and he groans in protest at the threat of being left alone. You know that sound well, and while your mouth is parched and body is aching, you can't help but linger a couple minutes longer. Keith presses his long nails into your bare hips and assertively tugs you closer. It takes everything out of you not to chuckle when you submit to him and he contently sighs in response. You bring your arm behind his head and tilt your face down, pressing your nose against his crown and drinking in that earthy scent.

"Morning," you whisper to more the room than just Keith.

Blinking for several seconds against the sunlight, you suddenly realize you don't remember anything past the moment Keith groaned into your ear. A newfound terror strikes you cold.

This encourages you to leave him.

Gently reassembling Keith's sleeping position, you unsteadily retreat from the bed and make a beeline for the bathroom, nearly slipping on the hardwood. You don't bother to close the door behind you once inside. You're too focused on finding your reflection, but when you do, your stomach plummets.

"No."

Keith's handprints are on your chest. Not only your chest, though. His finger trails are streaked along your throat, and when you turn to examine the other side of your body, you realize they're also on your back. Whether or not these lines were made while on your back, stomach or standing up dancing will make all the difference for your self-respect, but there's only one person you can ask.

That one person abruptly appears in the bathroom doorway. Looking as haggard as you feel, Keith presses his shoulder against the door frame and follows it with the thud of his temple. Also coated in paint and condemnable prints, he sighs and slowly flutters his eyes open with an unmistakable frown. You stop running your hands along your neck and pause in heavy silence. Your eyes wander, and so do his.

There's a paint print on the inside of his thigh.

"Did we?" you don't turn that into a full sentence.

You can't breathe.

Your wife.

You have a _wife_.

"No," he lies, voice dry and unmoved.

You know it's a lie by the way his ears guiltily toss back.

He lies to your face.

Of all the things to lie about, you wish it wasn't this.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things heat up, so I'm going to give a firm xenophilia warning, y'all. Don't be shocked by someone's fingers going into someone's alien hole, too. That's about all I'll say. Also, I'm updating the tags.
> 
> This chapter has a bunch of world building, and I'm kind of obsessed with this whole story. I know it's adult, morally off kilter, and no one is really that good of a person, but I think that's why I like it. Writing adults making bad life decisions after saving the universe is an interesting concept to me. Like, how can you be so good but also so terrible at existing within your own interpersonal realm?
> 
> Anyway, enjoy and follow me on Twitter @leecawrites. Leave comments with theories or DM me if you wanna chat. I legit have played off commenter's ideas and really evaluated this story's plot through them. Readers building the story with me is my favorite part of fandom.

"Did we?" Shiro asks, letting the anticipation barrel across the bathroom like a dust storm.

You can't breathe.

Your dignity

You have  _dignity_.

"No," you say, voice dry and unmoved. You tap your temple with an index finger. "It was all up here. Drunk mind melding. I forgot that could happen. If it makes you feel better, it wasn't anything new. I had both legs, and you had less white hair. Those are the only details I'm letting myself hold onto."

That and you came so hard in your sleep you can feel the waxy build up along the crotch of your briefs. Shiro doesn't need to know this, though. You don't want to know this.

"But the prints," Shiro emphasizes. He looks at himself in the mirror, and his horror is palpable. This is not what he wants to be known for. The insinuation alone is beneath his character.

"Dancing," you answer. This puts into perspective how drunk Shiro was. "Those are from the dancing. Some of those prints aren't mine. Lance held onto your ass for twenty minutes and recited the ancient Altean national anthem backward and forward before smacking it for every birthday he missed."

Shiro sobers himself with a sigh and rapid blinking. He turns on the faucet and begins to rub the paint off his veiny forearms. His panic is still there, but at least it's internalizing.

"Shiro," you lowly mutter and approach the sink. You press your naked hip bone against the cold counter and fold your arms across your chest. You watch him continue to wash. He doesn't say anything because he's waiting for you to finish. He's listening. "I wouldn't. You know I wouldn't. You know I  _couldn't_."

"Don't make me point out how often you've reminded me that I don't know you anymore, which –" He shakes water off his hands and reaches for a hand towel. "– is fair. I don't know you anymore. You don't know me."

"Not the time," you snap. You reach beneath the faucet and half-heartedly smear the purple handprint off your throat.

"I'm not on your clock."

Shiro doesn't look at you, and it stings. It stings because you can't let go of a time when you were the first thing he looked at when he walked into the room.

The two of you say nothing to one another. Shiro finishes swiping clean the most condemning handprints, and with a deep breath, disappears into the bedroom without a word. He tugs on his pants and gathers the rest of his clothes. Before he leaves, you watch him stall from the bathroom door. Shiro has words, but as he always has, he keeps them to himself. He doesn't look at you when he opens the bedroom door and steps through.

"Don't mind me, but that was fucking ugly," Lance woozily murmurs from the mattress.

His voice startles you, but you crawl your gaze onto him rather than let him know you forgot he was there. He's on his back, hands folded beneath his head like a pillow, and he's watching the ceiling.

You don't have time for this. You technically don't know what else you have time for, but the sentiment still stands. "Whatever you think you heard, forget it."

Lance sits up. He's shirtless, and your eyes pierce the gnarled scar slashed across his heart. "No can do, gatito. That was Grade A memory food. I'll hold onto that scene for a long time."

"Don't call me that."

The nickname is a punch to the gut. It's a different kind of familiarity between you two that Lance dumped like a car concealing a dead body.

Between Shiro and Lance, you're not sure how you haven't joined a space abbey.

Lance stares you down, unafraid. You're his equal, and that's fine, but you're his equal in the way that nothing goes beneath him or over him. Forever, he will call you out and carve messages into your exposed bones because that's what he's close to. He's close to the bone, and he's the only one who knows the skeletons in your closet. After all, he's one himself 

A maid enters the room with a coffee tray holding five cups and basket of pastries. Whether or not she senses the energy in the chamber, you don't know. She says nothing, but you thank her as she walks out the door. Lance is the first to his feet to grab the coffee pot. He points out the pain meds, takes Shiro's for him, and sits down. You join him to pour your mug but say nothing while Hunk and Pidge sleep for several more minutes.

After a levying silence, Lance speaks. "I don't know why you're doing this."

The accusation takes a moment to sink in. Your eyes are losing focus on the cityscape outside your window that's warbling like a mirage. You sew your mind to your body and frown. "I'm not doing anything."

To be fair, you _really_ don't know what he means.

Lance's eyes skirt toward Pidge and Hunk who have started to move and breathe in their hangover miasmas. You laugh at their groans despite Lance's haunting words.

"It's like alcohol is bad or something," Pidge says, too pragmatic. Hunk laughs through his misery and pushes himself to his side. "I'd say it was worth it, but does anyone here remember what we  _did_?"

"I'm totally going to puke," Hunk says. He's accepted the inevitability.

"That mattress is one of a kind," you say, pretending to care. An insidious thought rubs your back. You wouldn't mind if Hunk ruined the mattress, but that's to spite Shiro. The intrusive thought makes you pour yourself more coffee, but this time, you add sugar. You know you're better than that bitter thought. "Try to make it to the toilet so I'm not sleeping with Pidge until I can order a replacement."

Pidge unsteadily rises to her feet. She flings out her arms to stabilize herself. Her bedhead reminds you of two devilish horns. "Some part of me wants to critique you for assuming I'd let you sleep with me, but I'd let you whether or not your bed's ruined. A real sleepover is ageless."

Hunk burps and gags, but it's performative. You lift your mug at them and nod toward the pot. This entices Pidge who sleepily shimmies toward the offering. She's shirtless, but you're pretty sure she hasn't worn a shirt since she turned eighteen. You no longer notice, but it has perpetually made Shiro wish he were blind. In many ways, she's like his sister, but Pidge has no patience for sexualizing breasts. You agree with the sentiment, but you've sexualized man's chest you've ridden over. 

"That's way too much energy," you joke. She shimmies in your direction.

"Did Shiro already jet?" Hunk asks, scanning the room. He answers his question and checks his watch. It blips, and a tiny holographic square appears beneath his nose. "He's in the Green Wing already. That meeting isn't for another hour. We have time not to be there. We have time to be hungover adults, Shiro."

"His Highness is always present," Pidge reminds him. She grabs a pastry. It's a sticky purple swirl decorated with a creamy yellow glaze. She bites down, and it oozes lime custard. Pidge speaks before she finishes chewing the bread. "Last night was a blast, though. I know _I_  had fun, anyway. Panel of judges aside, it's safe to say I'm still the best dancer second only to Lance who – as the Dancing Queen – can't compete with us civilians. Someday I'll be your king, Lance. Just you wait."

Lance winks at her. "Bated breath, Pidge. You and Keith might cross swords before that happens, though."

Pidge waggles her eyebrows at you, and you waggle them back.

Hunk heaves himself to his feet with a defeated gust of air. He joins them at the low table and steals a pastry that matches Pidge. Lance pours him coffee, and there's soon the comfortable clinking of mugs and chewing.

"Have they started debriefing you two?" Hunk asks, taking a wet slurp from his mug.

"Shiro's been guarding his balls since Keith and I showed up," Lance says, matter-of-fact but pleased. "The most they've managed is a stern guilt trip about why it's imperative we join the IAPP, which worked on Keith. I wanted them to work a little harder for it. Throw in a fruit basket or complimentary water or _something_."

"We got the guilt, too," Pidge confides. Her watch gives a cheery chirp and she untrustingly glances at it.

Hunk's face contorts as if he's reliving the trauma. "After Pidge and I got the order to come back, we were in lecture halls for weeks with the other big brains. The amount of movement that happens in this palace is certified gross, and that's just the Green Wing. It's impossible to keep up with everything. The human limbic system is only so impressive, which would be all well and chill if anyone trusted anyone to pick up the slack."

Pidge takes another artless bite. "This place is such a shit show you almost can't be mad at Allura and Shiro for bringing us back on site."

You're eminently glad the four of you sit together in reluctance and not like myrmidons. Moving onto palace grounds wasn't through anyone's volition, which isn't fair, but solidarity is never a bad thing.

"You're going to lose your mind," Hunk says, and you realize he's talking to you. You coolly blink above your mug and expectantly lift an eyebrow. He raises an open palm as if already defending himself. "I'm telling you, man. One look at the focus here? The way resources are funneled? I want to be there the moment you throw down with Allura and Shiro. It's all Pidge and I talked about during the ride here. IAPP bloodshed."

You let your mouth fall to one side. "I don't think Shiro would appreciate the boardroom turning into a gladiator match. Anyway, I'm not here to reform. I'm here to give advice. Mainly, my opinion. If they don't want to take it, then that's their prerogative as self-anointed emperor and empress."

"Did it get in chilly in here?" Lance asks, too serious not to be taunting.

"You think that," Hunk begins, "but when you remember this is the universe they're trying to stabilize, then you go into overtime. Trust me, man. You're not gonna feel good knowing your leg got sawed off for this."

Hunk's bluntness is striking. You pour more coffee. "I'll keep that in mind."

The four of you finish mugs, and Hunk and Pidge promptly leave to dress for their Green Wing meeting. No one mentions the implicative dancing or Shiro's and your minds melding, and you feel like you've dodged a laser bullet. The nagging desire to be useful pushes you to shower, and Lance joins you, but neither one of you talk or look at the other beneath the waterfall spray. Lance, usually one to pop off with his first thoughts, is stewing.

When Lance isn't looking, you use two fingers to scoop the congealed ooze free from between your legs. It's thick, and the slight scraping feels good, but that's for another day.

"What did you mean when you said you didn't know why I'm doing – whatever you think I'm doing?" you ask, towel drying your hair. You're standing inside the closet, which has already commented on your split ends twice. It complimented your proportions, though, so you decide to take what you can get.

Lance bitingly laughs. He somehow doesn't sound as judgmental as one would expect. Rather, he looks borderline concerned. You don't know what's more insulting.

"Be honest with me here. Don't act like you're not trying to get under Shiro's skin, and don't worry. I get it, babes. There's bad blood there. No. Rotten blood that  _stinks_. We'll even be realistic and call it sunbaked roadkill on the hottest day of the Earth year, but isn't it beneath you to try and do whatever you're trying to do? You always told me you still considered Allura your friend. There's a child involved."

_Babes._

Your eyes widen and blood pressure reaches the three suns. The accusation feels unfounded, but somehow, it's hard to negate. "You think I'm trying to sabotage Shiro's marriage?"

"Keith, I saw you on that hoverbike with him. Your ass was flung  _out_  and when the shield went up? Do you think I didn't notice –"

Again, you have dignity, and your pride is on the line right alongside your masculinity. The notion of sticking your ass out for an ex solely to be vindictive makes your stomach cramp. You stride away from Lance who is entitled enough to grab your wrist and reel you back into the conversation with a dismissive sigh.

You violently jerk your arm, but he holds tight. You're past the point in your life when you were willing to stuff his nose into his skull, but you're not afraid to punch in other ways. You tighten the fist he's captured and sneer, eyes aflame and boring into his. "You're one to talk about marriages and fidelity, Lance. Last time I checked, you not only butchered your own but turned around and had a baby while you and I were –"

Lance drops your arm like a red coal, actually cutting your sentence in two. He squares himself, and you hate that he's taller than you by almost half a head. It makes you want to lunge.

"While you deliver blows lower than the ones I came up with when I was eighteen, I'm going to remind you it was _you_  who ruined your chances with Shiro. I'm not perfect, and you sure as hell aren't either. I've been here through every imperfection. Every ounce of reluctance you've had. From leading Voltron to leading your own life, I was there, and I'm still here. You better remember that when you're done doing whatever you're doing with him."

You take a step back, making a point to digest your rage before you say something unforgivable. Lance shows no signs of regret, and while you appreciate his latent self-confidence, you currently loathe it.

"We didn't do anything," you promise. It comes out like a threat. "Our minds melded. That's been involuntary since we started hopping lions. Memories, Lance. We were splicing memories last night, not mind fucking. I don't even remember them."

You remember one memory, though.

One memory distinctly replays like an eroded tape jammed inside a VCR. Between intermittent blue clips and screaming static, you can hear Shiro's and your laughter echoing through what sounds like a tunnel. It's as if the whole recollection is underwater, distorted by distance and the coping mechanisms time and space.

That moment. That moment that made you feel like you could move galaxies.

It was amplified by the thrill of being barefoot on a planet for the first time in years. Sprinting through New Altea's encampment after dark, the two of you were winding in and out of rows of tents and birthing giants with your racing shadows and bonfires. Then wearing a new prosthetic that had been engineered to withstand your physical altitudes, the freedom combined with cool grass beneath your toes created a breed of euphoria that echoed from your ribcage like a belted song.

You stopped at the edge of the encampment, chest drinking in oxygen. The vague laughter of coalition members who broke New Altea ground alongside you served as background noise.

"This will be a city," you decreed and flung out your arms.

You were trying to embrace the whole planet. Surrounding you were valley walls with their broad tree trunks guarding the camp. The distant crash of rough waves flew overhead like swooping birds, and when the wind blew in a particular temperament, you could taste salt. "This place is going to be everything, Shiro. It's going to be more than you and me and what we imagined Earth could be, and  _we_  are going to make it. I'm going to make it with you and everyone else."

Shiro's fondness was stitched into his expression. He spoke light, gentle, but in earnest. "You. With you."

Hope's grocery list; optimism, courage, and love.

You no longer remember what it's like to exist within hope's unbridled joy, but in the fitful sleep shared with Shiro, you recognized its many voices. Since leaving New Altea, you've forgotten the people hope spoke to. They've become lesser, thinner, half-baked interpretations of heroes who once  _believed_. Admittedly, you've also forgotten what it's like to exist within the suspended disbelief that all could be conquered through love.

In that distant evening's blackberry darkness, Shiro kissed you until your lips were plump and tingling.

He was once the Earth to you. Shiro defined Earth. He was grounded when you were levitating inside your burning head.

It's infuriated you for years knowing that, when he was no longer there, you were forced to replace your spine's rose-colored stones with ugly lumps of coal. You had to make sure that, upon colliding with a surface that wasn't his, you wouldn't shatter on impact.

Shiro held both sides of your head and tilted you backward, his forehead firm against yours. His mouth annunciated overripe words with sweet breath. "It started with you. It's going to end with you."

"With you," you echoed. Your smile was light and your heart heavy with dreams. "You."

This memory is an empty jar. It's been rinsed and shaken dry so many times even the label's sticky residue is scrubbed clean. You don't remember the container's original contents, but something tells you it was molasses heated thin by your holding palms. Even as you stand before Lance, mouth dry and fingers twitching, you imagine its currant river drooling between your splayed fingers and reluctantly descending to the floor.

"Nothing happened," you reiterate to Lance.

Like that, the memory is a shell, meaning vacant. It's an overplayed song, you think. You're tired of it.

Lance searches your face for lies, but you don't exalt that judgment. You break eye contact and start to dress. To your relief, Lance dramatically strides out of the closet for his bedroom's sanctuary.

Alone for the first time in hours, you don't want to leave your bedroom to face Balmera Palace. You're hungover with a churning stomach and a headache that could kill an ox, but as you long ago discovered, the universe doesn't sleep.

"Kill me," you say, but you're speaking to an empty room.

You're contemplating a power nap (see: self-induced coma) when your watch beeps. It's an unread message, and the icon is green, which means Pidge either needs something or wants to mock you.

 **PIDGE** : Don't read the tabloids.

Or warn you.

 **KEITH** : Don't sweat it. I never do.

 **PIDGE** : Lucky for you Allura doesn't either.

This stops you in front of your bedroom door. Your heart forgets to beat.

 **KEITH** : What do you mean?

 **PIDGE** : Trust me, you don't want to know.

A blue icon subverts Pidge's message.

 **LANCE** : Read the tabloids. Right now.

God has given you a choice.

 **KEITH:**  Sum it up in three words. I'll decide then.

 **LANCE:**  You're a ho.

You turn off your watch with an aggravated sigh. The sigh doesn't even have a chance to settle before your watch turns itself back on. You blink at the technology's autonomy and see Pidge's unread message.

 **PIDGE:**  This meeting is so boring I'm considering turning black hole diving into a sport.

"Really?" you mutter beneath your breath. You think to take the watch off but know better than to go rogue directly after a tabloid slam. Instead, you rush down the spiral stairs and make a beeline for the Blue Wing's doors. You're not sure where you're going, but there's an entire city to explore.

If you'd had any concept of what was beyond the threshold, then you would have vouched for the coma. Nap. You mean nap. 

But you didn't.

A flock of IAPP advisors is seated on hard white benches that blend in with the walls. You never noticed the seats framing the doors before, but something tells you they're intentionally uninviting. Assuming the congregation is there for Shiro and Allura, you attempt to stride past unnoticed. Like rustled birds, your presence makes them shift, and the tallest—a tangerine anteater triple your height who's wearing a billowing black cloak—whirls into your path. He opens his arms as if posing, and a breeze blows from an indefinite source. It swings your bangs to the wrong side of your face, and you robotically shove them back into place.

"Can I help you?" you dully ask, eyes peering past his hairy elbow. You're already strategizing the quickest path to the garage.

"As much as I'd hoped Coran remembered to prepare you for your appointments this evening, it seems he has not assigned you an assistant and felt too occupied to fill the role briefly. Fortunately," the anteater begins, shifting his shoulder with a fluid drop, "I'm a patient creature who understands decorum is not always necessary when buffering the universe. Many would consider it an honor to present you – the Splendid Red Paladin ("Please don't call me that.") – with your evening's itinerary."

You're too distracted by his refined English and puny eyes to acknowledge he's been posing. You shift your gaze across the accompanying crowd that's watching with bated breath, and you realize you're alone in this.

You're not only alone, but you're the Red Paladin and Sometimes Black Paladin who murdered Prince Lotor. There's no way to escape how much you matter to these people. Before you can fantasize about running away, you remember you've already tried that once, and from the looks of it, it didn't work out too well.

You extend your hand. If he speaks unflawed English, then he likely knows Earth customs. Something tells you it's imperative you act like a decent human being around him. "I'm Keith."

His palm, which is bigger than your head, closes around your hand, wrist, and forearm. Marbled brown talons rest against your elbow's crook like daggers, and you firmly shake once. His eyes crinkle in pleasure, and he lively introduces himself. "I am Cemlo, Keeper of the IAPP's Archives and Histories, appointed by Her Majesty and assigned to you as Lecturer by His Majesty."

"Assigned to me," you say from the corner of your mouth. "You're going to be doing all the chalk talk then."

Cemlo frees your limb. "I'm afraid I don't understand that colloquialism."

"Never mind," you quickly say beneath your breath and remember to keep a neutral expression. Standing there is like cutting teeth. You're restless, and your body is still bombinating with memories of Shiro's cock slipping into you. You need to  _go_. "It's nice to meet you, Cemlo, but I have other obligations that –"

The male's snout drops. He's shrewdly scrutinizing you with rising (what you think are) eyebrows. He doesn't believe you, which is fair. It's not like you've been there long enough to establish a social life, and anyway, you have this nagging feeling the palace documents every move you make. This reels you back into your role. You've committed, you remind yourself. This is your life for now.

"– other obligations that I need to cancel. Give me a tick to clear my private schedule."

There is no private schedule. Your friends are doing their jobs, and the one friend who isn't stormed out of your room and called you a ho within a thirty-minute span.

You message Pidge.

 **KEITH** : What do you know about Cemlo?

Her reply is borderline instant.

 **PIDGE** : He's okay. He's a part of the Green Wing. Dances a lot while talking and has Slav subtleties. Makes a mean margarita, but don't get him started on his Earth cocktail hobbies. He loves Earth. Actually, don't mention Earth at all. It'll save you time.  
  
For Pidge, this feels vague, but you don't have time to decipher that. Cemlo has already gestured toward the end of the hallway. He wants to give you the grand tour. A  _proper_  tour, he emphasizes, and he insists you see every executed detail you noted during the blueprint process. It's about time someone gave you an official tour, you think, but you've never liked feeling cornered. As always, it seems you have to rise to the occasion.

"Don't show me to Black Garden," you insist. "Shiro wanted to show me that himself."

"I couldn't even if I wanted to. It's barred off from not only the public but the Empress herself. You should feel honored by that invitation. I believe the only other person who's seen it aside from its landscapers would be Matthew Holt."

Well shit.

The tour is split into three parts. Cemlo begins with the rooms you've already seen minus the Blue Wing, which he has no entry to. The museum vibe instantly bores you, but he cleverly inserts details about the current political climate between architecture lessons, prideful name dropping and well-meaning Galra support ("They have driven constitutions one might see as admirably monomaniacal. Their neurology makes them wonderful scientists."). Behind you, the other advisors silently follow with cloaks ballooning behind them like sails. You're not sure why they're there.

On the far right of the Blue Wing's outer wall, Cemlo escorts you outside. The air makes your lungs struggle, stiff with humidity, and the suns are unforgiving. You can already feel your hair reaching for the sky, and it takes you a second to realize you're on the opposite side of the Red Garden. You're standing on a distant overlook, and there's a sleek iron gate that opens to the garden, but it wears a sign informing you all public footpaths are closed.

"His Highness was particular about the Red Garden," Cemlo explains, gesturing at the thriving plot. "The Red Garden is the only garden aside from the Yellow Garden that produces edible flora. At the palace's opening, it was a crowd favorite. Many critiqued the decision to close it to the public, but Her Majesty explained having the public too close to where the newborn prince slept unnerved her. Eventually, the criticism ceased."

Shiro didn't tell you this, but you omit that observation.

"Shiro took me there," you airily say. You still haven't read the statue's inscription. "It was impressive."

Cemlo nods, knowing. "The castle botanist and his gardeners are a force. Enough of this humidity, though. Has anyone shown you the kitchens yet? They're always open for the Paladins."

Cemlo only allows an hour and a half of labyrinth wandering before he decides it's time for lessons. You aren't dreading the lessons so much as their timing miffs you. This makes entering the modest boardroom branching off the Red Wing's outer lobby less painful than it could be.

The room is stylized much like Shiro's library with its long hovering work table and assorted white stools. Splayed across the table is a series of holographic maps and an intricate chart you realize is a timeline. Beneath the holographs are several tablets showcasing flashing documents. As this broad range of information seems to deepen the longer you look at it; it occurs to you you never graduated from Galaxy Garrison's most elementary program.

You don't feel educated enough for this. You're a fighter, not a politician or academic. Since running off with Lance, you've barely skimmed a book. You've been running off of Instinct's fumes for years, and suddenly, you're expected to absorb years of administrative riff raff you know you're going to disagree with.

It's a monarchy. That alone pisses you off.

"Take a seat," Cemlo says, and his voice is soothing. It's like he understands you're feeling inadequate.

As the evening goes on, you know the lessons could be worse. Ultimately, though, you don't like being anything but the best at what you do, but what you  _especially_ don't like is seeing how far off the grid Shiro and Allura immediately went with the IAPP. As soon as you walked away from Shiro's wedding, they broke your democratic plan over knees like kindling. Allura took the situation by the reins and hasn't let go since.

"Shiro's signature isn't on any of these," you note as you sift through initial trade drafts. You slide another tablet toward yourself. You stand, and at once, you go from sitting pupil to an engaged office-bearer. You push the trade agreements to the side, and your eyes land on fiscal policies.

"His Highness was indisposed after the royal wedding. An unidentifiable human sickness removed him from meetings. We asked the Green Paladin to diagnose him, but she informed us the bedridden state would pass like a virus. No virus was detected, but we were forced to trust her. Unsurprisingly, she was right."

 _Emotional sickness baffles humans themselves_ , you think to say, but you know better. It's a dig beneath your ribs, and you've hurt yourself enough for one day.

"What's the taxation situation like?" you ask, though this will likely never be your department. You're still hoping Allura will throw you off onto the military, but it seems like she's elevating your status. "The automatic stabilization here doesn't make sense. Are we in debt?"

"Alforis is debt free," Cemlo proudly states.

You scoff and flip to another page, not looking up. "Impossible. There has to be a clause in the fine print somewhere. Government spending doesn't grow on trees. We're borrowing from someone. If not borrowing, then we're heavily taking from the people. You don't build a city like this on nothing."

"We have a modest taxation method, which is ultimately unavoidable, but Red Paladin, you and the other Paladins entirely funded the project. It's only within the last few years we've had foreign contribution."

This makes you slowly lift your gaze. It's not the idea of using your money for the greater good that promptly sends your stomach plummeting. It's the notion of having that much wealth between the six of you.

"Can we find a way to print these numbers? I want to know what we've been spending on merit goods and public goods. We've been subsidizing industries, right? I need those numbers too."

Cemlo drifts away from you, and his strop loses energy. "I'm afraid those documents need authorization. We carefully guard the stimulus for reasons I'm sure you can deduce yourself."

"Fine," you say, annoyed by the red tape. It's only the first day, and it's _there_. "Who authorizes the distribution?"

"The empress herself."

You straighten yourself at that dictatorial implication. "Don't we have a treasury? That's who should authorize those notes, right?"

"We do," Cemlo vaguely confirms. He doesn't elaborate or answer your second question.

You narrow your stare but relax your expression.

"Print what we have here," you order. "I'll see to the authorization myself."

Cemlo sends you back to the Blue Wing with a tablet and the paper stack you requested. He calls the physical documents primeval, but you ignore that and thank him for his time. Done with the archivist for the evening, you seek out a chair in the Blue Wing's library and ignore every message Pidge sends about dinner.

You sink headfirst into a lake of knowledge that burns you from the feet up. Rather than assume, you decide to prove yourself right and leave your work at the table to hunt for an Altean history scroll. More specifically, you're hunting for the Altean monarchy's origin story. Allura is anything but ignorant, and as the former Blue Paladin, she's formidable, but the empress has always worn her heart on her sleeve. You have never forgiven her naivety in the first alternate reality you visited.

"Outdated," you mutter to the room. There is no Altean history book to be found. This unnerves you. "All of this is fucking archaic."

It's the catalyst for academic devotion your Garrison days would have warmly welcomed. Aside from small meals in the morning, you forgo socialization for extensive reading and internal screaming. When you're not making notes on grisly policies your teenage self could have concocted during an AP History course, you're grotesquely warping your face in reaction to what you're reading. For an entire week, your nights are sleepless and aggravated. The papers are noted with red ink, looking like you slit your palm and spanked them, and you're unendingly baffled by the antediluvian language used as the foundation for the IAPP's administration.

"I know we're technically not talking," Lance says at some point during your obsessive state, "but maybe you should sleep."

_"They have driven constitutions one might see as admirably monomaniacal."_

"Maybe you should read this," you propose instead.

It's nine days later, six in the morning and one pot of coffee down when you've had enough aneurysms for a month. You wanted an informed opinion before you gave it, and you now feel educated enough to be as pissed off as expected.

Your watch is full of unanswered messages and missed outings with the others, and while you regret closing yourself off to friends, no one can say you're not taking your promise serious. You skim through the apps and find the locator that traces fellow paladins' steps, including Allura's. At first, you thought the device was dangerous. If someone stole one, then all could be assassinated, but Hunk explained only the user's skin can activate the watches. This summoned macabre possibilities such as filleting someone to use the watch, but Hunk promised that also wasn't possible. The watches detect manipulation.

Shiro is in the training hall. Cemlo walked you there once, and you've used the gym to drain stress, but you haven't had the headspace to engage with the gladiators. You decide today is a good day for a fight.

Alforis' sportswear trend puts you in black jogging tights and a white crop top that clings to your ribs and biceps. The IAPP insignia is printed across the chest in black, and you tug on a hooded zip up also brandished by the government emblem. You tie back your hair and grab the thoroughly marked documents. Lance is ambling down his stairs when you leap over your banister. You acknowledge one another with a glance.

"Nice stomach," Lance calls after you. "When are you gonna let me eat cake off of it again?"

"That wasn't cake, Lance." Your defenses slide over you. "And never. The answer is  _never_."

The sterile gym sits inside the Black Wing's first hall. There are military training lodges in the Red Wing, but this is the most public facility and a social hub. You tuck the folder beneath your armpit as you walk into the lobby. Assorted residents are lingering outside the locker rooms, chatting about scheduling, policy and general gossip. There's a sleek, minimalist shake bar on the opposite end of the room, and every black couch and chair is occupied by sweating or soon-to-be-sweating palace employees. It takes you a minute to notice, but a quiet disperses across the room the second someone utters the words 'Red Paladin.'

This has been your life for a decade. You ignore the staring and approach the shake bar. The thin girl standing behind the counter unabashedly looks you over. She's young, maybe a teenager, but after processing your existence, flashes her sharp teeth. She's the color of a ripe avocado and her hair is white noodles tied back into a sleek high ponytail. Her facial features are a blade, and her black eyes gleam with feeling, catching the light. She shrewdly leans forward onto her elbows and rests a cheekbone against her palm. To her, you are livestock.

"I'd be more impressed if I didn't make the emperor's shake every morning. Nice to finally meet you, Red Paladin. I've heard things."

"Keith," you try, but she rolls her eyes. Many would call her insolent, but you appreciate the familiarity. It occurs to you she could have very well grown up in the palace. "I'm sure you've heard plenty."

Such as the fact His Highness and the Red Paladin used to be lovers. You delude yourself into thinking you're paranoid.

"I bet I know who you're looking for," she teases.

This sounds like a hit, but you figure it's because there's a thick paper stack beneath your armpit. You ignore her, uninterested in engaging, and nod toward the menu behind her head. "I'm looking for a shake."

Yet to have any food since dinner, you order a highly caffeinated drink with chocolate notes. You swipe your card and she drifts to make the icy drink. Voices have picked back up, and you hope the palace adjusts to your presence sooner than later. Unfortunately, you know that would require constantly being in the public eye.

"The emperor is in the highest training arena. The elevator is over there," she says and plops the plastic cup down in front of you. She nods toward a rounded pair of silver doors to your left. "I think your handprint should let you onto the observation deck, Mr. Red Paladin."

"Keith," you reiterate. "What's your name?"

She leans over again and cups both sides of her face. "Shake Girl."

You grab a straw and puncture the cup's lid. You take a long sip and gesture with two fingers, expression not one way or the other. "Nice to meet you, Shake."

"Nice to meet you, Red."

You stride toward the elevator and scan your hand for the top observation deck, proving Shake Girl right. The ride is quick, and the elevator doors open onto a lounge. It's an overhang above a training court, and it is packed. Packed with people, but also, there are chairs and forgotten duffle bags stacked on every flat surface offered. You're on a mission. You don't want to watch egos rip one another apart like horny dogs, but through the spectator's window, you notice purple neon lightning flash toward the ceiling.

You're on a mission. You don't want to watch egos rip one another apart like horny dogs, but through the spectator's window, you notice purple neon lightning flash toward the ceiling.

You know that energy.

"Keith," a familiar voice utters like a single flat note. You stand at attention and turn to the final person you view as an authority figure. Kolivan, still dressed in his Marmora armor and as imposing as ever is beside you. His arms are crossed, and he was evidently watching the fight below. "It has been nearly a decafebe."

You reach to shake his hand. He clasps onto your wrist in response and promptly drops it. In your peripheral vision, purple flashes again, but this time it's pinker.

"I didn't expect you to be here of all places."

"The Marmora holds a vast amount of the universe's knowledge extending beyond the Galra War. Shiro and Allura requested a Marmora liaison and advisor. I saw it fit to assign myself."

"You of all people would know how Shiro and Allura function," you say, politely smiling. "You kept Voltron together when we were all on our backs."

"Incorrect. You did."

You refuse to take the credit. "So you're advising the empress and emperor."

"Allura has had a difficult time letting go of the political model her father left behind. When I'm not with her, then I'm training IAPP military personnel and overseeing Shiro's training regimen. I didn't attend the gala, but I'd heard of your impending return from Shiro spicolian movements before then."

Week is an ambiguous term. You're rightfully suspicious.

"Is Shiro down there? I'm here to talk to him."

"He's fighting the gladiators. We modified the settings after he maxed out our highest. He's testing the newly programmed levels now, but from the looks of it, he'll be occupied late into the morning."

"I don't have late into the morning."

This is a fact. Past noon, you have a jammed schedule until dinnertime. The thought exhausts you, but until you better orient yourself with the IAPP, you can't delegate a personal schedule. You scan the room for a route to the training room floor, and your unchanged impetuosity miffs Kolivan.

He reluctantly gives Shiro away. "A door is on the opposite end of the room, hidden behind the wall. There's a scanner. It will give you access to an elevator that will take you down."

"Appreciated," you quickly say. You stride toward the wall. "We'll talk later, Kolivan. I have findings and words about the current administration."

It's faint, but he smiles. "I have no doubt you do."

The cramped elevator takes you to a floor that spreads before you like white AstroTurf. Your eyes aren't drawn to the imposing white ceilings or overwhelmed by how the training arena is double the size of the one on Castle Lion. It lands on the shirtless man gracefully heaving himself across the room instead.

In Shiro's hand is the Black Bayard, and your fingers instinctively close in want. You're not sure if it's due to your past addiction to fighting as a paladin or your repressed homosexual urges. You figure both. Both, for certain.

Shiro's form is better than you remember, and you now understand why he seemed aglow on his ship. Unlike your time with Voltron, proper food and consistent medical attention have healthily conditioned him into a force.

Your eyes dart to the sweat streaking his throat. The droplets make pools inside his clavicles that spill over. His naked chest gleams, and you mock yourself for even noticing. Your keen senses, such as eyesight, are for perceptiveness in battle, not ogling your ex-boyfriend's breasts. This doesn't stop you, though.

Eventually, you train yourself off Shiro and narrow in on the gladiator. It's a new model, unlike anything you've seen before, but the uniform exoskeleton reminds you of Pidge's work. It is double Shiro's size, but it's lithe and programmed to be unnervingly precise. Shiro doesn't falter beneath its strikes. He avoids box kicks that could cut a person in half and flits through the robot's chest, leaving behind purple afterimages.

A new onlooker would think Shiro is sprinting at hyper speed, but you know better. He's teleporting himself, breaking apart time and space with rapidly opening and closing atoms.

The training simulation ends, and the robot sags forward, eerily still after all its dynamism.

Shiro plants his hands on his thin waist and rolls his shoulders, but he's not panting. His back is facing you when he speaks. "Keith, why are you down here?"

Shiro's tone is an icy runoff. You could care less.

You lift the folder beneath your arm and smack the front with a  _thwack_. Your eyes never leave him. "We need to have a sit-down, Your Highness."

Shiro luxuriously stretches his arms above his head. His back arches into a graceful half-moon and your boiling stare peels the skin off his muscles. "You can save it for a scheduled meeting like everyone else. This is the only alone time I get, and I'm not wasting it. Call it self-preservation. Call it selfish."

Undithered, you stride across the arena. It's confident and unafraid even though Shiro is holding one of the universe's most powerful weapons in his hand. You once took up that mantle. That weapon was yours.

"The only other person authorized on my accounts is you, so why is Allura pushing my money around?" you ask, deadly serious.

This seizes Shiro's attention. The muscles along his neck tighten but instantly relax. After an indiscernible breath, he turns on his heel and faces you with the blade loosely hanging in hand. Your eyes flick toward it but they return to Shiro's contemplative gaze. He's assessing you. He's also concocting a bullshit cocktail.

"You signed onto funding Alforis, Keith. It's been years but don't pretend you forgot. I was beside you at the meeting. Every investment we've made with that money has gone toward improving people's lives and stabilizing the universe. Not to mention, indefinitely expanding your bank account."

"I know what I signed. We drew up that document with an entire board and spent weeks debating it. That doesn't change the fact you're the only person on my account. To give Allura exclusive access to my funds, I had to add her onto the account myself. I never did. I haven't been here in seven years, which was your first line of bait, right? Me coming back here to access my money?"

Shiro quietly swallows, but you hear it. "It's because she's my wife, Keith. She has access to my finances, and your accounts are legally considered my finances."

Shiro says it so matter-of-fact, so measured. It's as if he can't fathom the words are beating their fists against your chest until they fall into your heart like a crushed house.

You laugh, and while the sheer amount of acrimony startles you, you can't stop. Your head falls back, and you roughly rush your fingers through your bangs. After the manic spell, you look forward and then at the folder. Allura having access to your money and also exclusive rights to transactions with your money isn't the only thing you wanted to discuss, but it has taken priority.

The emotions spawned by Shiro have grabbed you by the throat and shaken you. They have since you were a teen.

"You could have done something to prevent that," you lowly say, not sure what the lounge can hear.

"There were reasons I didn't. Firstly, you wouldn't let me contact you –"

"Don't turn this on me," you mumble, but he isn't wrong. You built a wall between the both of you that was intended to stand for a lifetime. "You're a smart man. It's one of the reasons we're standing here on this planet. You're an emotionally intelligent man, Shiro. You  _knew_  me. You  _knew_  how I'd feel about this."

Shiro's eyes widen. "We can't talk about this here. You're furious, but this isn't right, not this soon. The people won't think to let you recover if word gets out you lashed out at me like a child."

"Don't impede my right to be furious with you right now."

"As if you doing that to me is not what you've built the past seven years on."

You step back.

Again, he's right. You hate it, but he is right. You sober yourself and turn your shoulder to him, subtly panting through anger Coran once deduced as Galra physiology but you acknowledge as emotional weight.

"We're full grown men," you say more to yourself. "This is ridiculous."

"I don't know what you think being an adult man does to change what happened between us, but you might want to reconsider that whole sentence."

Wordlessly, you open your hand. The Black Bayard disappears from Shiro's palm and reappears in yours. Your fingers appreciate the weighted feel of the perfect blade, and it's so satisfying you miss Shiro's gaping mouth, the surprise he evaporates without effort. You whirl the blade once and turn toward him with a lopsided frown. He arches an eyebrow, expecting more petulance, but you toss the folder. It hits the ground with a smack and your body simmers with a particular kind of desire.

"You're impossible," Shiro says, but it carries a sliver of fondness. More fatigue, though.

"No business on the training deck, so how about a round for old times?"

He perceptively stares. "Why don't I trust you not to make it personal?"

This makes you smile. "I already told you, Shiro. You're a smart man."

He matches the smile, but it's challenging. "That's my Bayard."

You toss the weapon aside and unzip your jacket. It too ends up on the floor. You walk to close the gap between Shiro and you, casually lifting your bare fists. "I meant  _old_ times."

Your fists pull down and combust into flames, the sensation a tingle and lacking its stinging burn. Shiro stalls, but he snaps his fingers and purple lightning stabs the ground beside you. The hairs on the back of your neck lift, but the both of you understand lightning and fire are primarily lovers. You are not concerned.

"Have you been practicing?" Shiro asks, fearless.

You realize you should have tested yourself against his robot before challenging him, but it's too late. Technically, it's not too late, but it's too late for your pride, and ultimately, isn't that what matters?

You assess the distance between Shiro and you. "It looks like you have."

He jogs backward to give you both space and boyishly smiles. "That wasn't an answer or was it?"

Mid-run, Shiro disappears into racing purple lines. You sprint forward and catapult your entire body into a horizontal spin that avoids a violent lightning crash. The strike burns the ground, but the adrenaline it inspires pierces your cortex. You artfully land on your side and roll onto your knees before rising to your feet. You don't stop once, and when you sprint backward, it looks as if you exist in reverse. Shiro, you realize, is faster than ever.

Shiro crashes down from overhead, fist thrown back. You barely manage to dodge. Your palms slam against the ground and you give a spin kick that shoots a protective wall of fire. Shiro lands on his own palm and whirls himself so that you can hit his feet. His silhouette stands on the other side of the climbing flames.

"How's the sprinkler system?" you shout, licking your pointed canine with a grin.

"You might not want to find out. Electricity and water mix, but water and fire don't."

The basic lesson is incensing. Condescending Shiro is your least favorite, but you know he loaded that sentence. "Just tell me you don't like Lance and me together, Shiro. You've never struck me as metaphorical."

He cracks his neck, exhales, and without a flinch, runs through the fire. Your eyes go large, and for once, you feel your ears flick back. You grit your teeth, draw back a fiery fist, and run toward him.

The two of you collide like moths slamming against a porch light.

He's made of titanium, and though you're now even smaller than Shiro, you're fighting with diamond knuckles. You're scrappy from birth until death, and when Shiro swings toward your head, you grab his elbow and slam your other elbow into his jaw. He reaches for your wrist, and the physical contact feeds your starved flames. They roar, climbing oxygen, and you break Shiro's hold just in time to duck. His fist grazes your ears.

Block, dodge, block, dodge, nail and project blood from your nose.

You roundhouse kick him, leg slamming dead against his chest, and he teleports through your limb. He latches onto your arms and brutally wraps them behind your back. In a whirlwind exchange, his prosthetic snatches both of your wrists, and he reaches for your hair, roughly bending you forward. The position is vulnerable. You've been like this with him under very different circumstances, but you're not begging this time. You're not face first in a pillow with Castle Lion's mechanical hum filling the space between your full breaths.

There's one way out of this, but you haven't had to utilize the method in years. With a deep breath, you scrape at the recesses of your heart, trying to summon the will to concentrate like the leader you know you can be. It's difficult to clear your mind the way you used to when at the Black Lion's helm, but with an internal roar that fissures you open like a devastated fault line, you take a step forward.

The rush starts in your epicenter. It's airy and light and begins like a breeze brushing an ocean's lid. You close your eyes, and though you only have an iota of a second, you break the second down as if it's hours. The breeze quickens into bitter wind, and the storm clouds fill the air with static. Every hair behind your ears visibly lifts, and your body slowly relaxes within Shiro's assertive grip. He notices and holds you tighter.

You tilt back your head, and the white ceiling disappears. It's the morning, but all you see is space's unrelenting blackness. The sky shreds itself above you, revealing a purple layer of light, and you call for it.

It answers. Your heart crackles, and you evaporate from Shiro's grip.

You reappear behind him, and while teleportation makes you nauseous, you hold back your vomit. You ram your elbow into Shiro's spine and hook your arm around his neck. Snapping it isn't an option, so you reach for his bicep and sling him across the arena instead.

Shiro recovers while airborne. He lands with feline grace, and stares you down as if he could eat you alive. He's human, but the way he immediately sprints toward you with his prosthetic arm brightly weaponized suggests otherwise. He is capable of murdering whole armies.

You run toward him, reveling in your ability to withstand him. 

Fire roars from your fist, and his purple limb pulses light. He's going in for the ending blow. The two of you meet to throw fists, knuckles bound to break, but you both glitch purple and pass through each other.

Shiro laughs as soon as he's materialized. He catches his breath. "Since when do you bail, Keith?"

Your back is turned toward him, and your pupils are shaking. He's strong, but you have to bluff. "I'm not bailing. I don't want to kill you."

His amusement cuts off. His next words are grave. "Implying you think I want to kill you."

You correct yourself. Shiro, you remember, is touchy. "Accidents happen."

His footsteps pad across the floor, and you time him between your labored breathing. You fling yourself around, but you lower your fist. He's not there. You would have heard him teleport, so you're caught off guard by how the footsteps were disembodied. The arena has become disconcertingly quiet, and you think to cheat. You try to connect to his headspace and find him, but it's as if he's entirely disappeared from your dimension.

This is a frightening concept.

"Behind you," Shiro murmurs into your ear, pleased with himself. His breath is hot on your throat.

Air vacuums from your lungs.

You attempt to turn in defense, but he knees you across the arena. A rib cracks and splinters, reaching for your organs like driftwood. From then on, you never regain your bearings.

Shiro has muddled your thoughts with both his new ability and your inability to connect with him on a whim. He flits in front of your downed form, waits for you to climb to your feet, and once you're up, throws fists. His prosthetic goes cold on impact, and you douse your fire. The two of you fight like schoolyard delinquents in hyper speed, the aftermaths of thrown fists undetectable to the onlookers overhead.

Shiro's stamina has matched yours. He's stronger than you were when you fought Lotor, and you both know this. Something tells you he's toying with you, and this hunch is proven when his expression softens.

"Stand down," he snaps.

You catch his fist and spit blood onto the floor. "No way."

He nails your jaw and more blood bursts from your lips. It takes insurmountable force to break your skin, and one hit busted your nose and now your mouth. You sputter more blood and your gaze flits up as rage begins to dissolve into common sense. His face isn't maimed. Every hit landed was unfelt.

He could kill you. You can't touch him.

Your eyes become saucers. He sees your panic, and had he still been your lover, it would have been enough to end the whole fight. Shiro isn't your lover, though. He's furious with you, and he has something to prove. You realize this. You know you've attempted to play a hand you no longer have.

Shiro throws a final punch to your temple, and it sends you to the ground, breaking your spirit's knees. It's not his hardest hit, but it's not his weakest. It's a gunshot by the ear canal, and your head violently rings with bleeding clarity. You hit your knees and hold both sides of your head, silently screaming with an unhinged jaw. You can't recall the last time you've endured immense physical pain. It's been purely emotional for years.

"It'll pass," he dully says, voice muffled. You sense regret, but Shiro doesn't emphasize on it.

You pant through the pain and stubbornly make yourself stand. Your equilibrium tilts and forces you to reorient your stance. Shiro reaches for your shoulders to steady you, but you jerk away from him.

"We're done," Shiro says. You open your mouth to fight him, but he grips hard. "Keith, we're done."

"That's my line," you cruelly joke, hardly lucid.

You close your eyes and grit your teeth, grunting through the residual pain. It passes, and you disbelievingly groan.

Shiro calmly speaks. He ignores your low blow and looks toward the overhang's windows. "Let's head up. We have work to do. Give me that folder, and I'll look over whatever's in there."

You regain your composure and grab his bicep. People are watching, and while the fight saturated your heart with napalm, you have a face to wear. Rather than elongate the scene, you squeeze his arm and offer your hand. Shiro, knowing what you're doing, takes your hand and politely shakes it. The shake lingers too long, and he tugs you toward his chest for a brief hug. It's a breath long, but he pats your back.

"We'll talk later," he whispers into your ear and frees you.

You're too stunned to reject or accept the physical gesture.

Inside the cramped elevator, you press your back against the cold wall and clumsily wipe the blood off your face. Shiro's arms are crossed, and he keeps his eyes on the wall past your neck. You give him eye contact, but he disconnects it and looks toward the wall on his immediate left. He stares down the lift's buttons.

"We could've used that seven years ago," you say, cracking the quiet like an egg.

He shrugs and rolls back his head. "We didn't have seven years to nonstop train."

"What are you even training for?" you press. "There's no need to be that strong anymore. Godlike strength is out of vogue."

The corner of his mouth is hooked, and he arches a dark eyebrow. "Are you saying that to make yourself feel better?"

You step across the elevator, and mimicking slow motion, firmly press your fist against his bare chest. "Give it a month, Shirogane. You'll regret that question."

He whistles and encircles his fingers around your wrist. The contact is good. It feels too good. "When I have reason to believe that, I'll get nervous. Get a teacher, Keith. Until then, remember to wipe your nose before your first meeting."

You hiss in satisfaction, and though you should be furious with one another, you both chuckle. You hum and manage to keep your eyes off his pecs.

"Teacher, huh? See you tomorrow morning then," you say.

His head shifts back in surprise. Shiro appraises you, but after a quiet thought, he smiles. He's suspicious, but it's the friendly kind. He welcomes the uncertainty. "It's been a long time since I taught you anything."

The elevator dings, warning you to retract your fist from his hold. "Yeah. Well, it looks like I'm overdue for a few lessons."

Lance is standing outside the elevator doors. He narrows in on Shiro first only to glance at you, at the blood pouring from your mouth. Lance heaves a drawn-out sigh, but it becomes a smile.

"Heard there was a show going on, but I didn't expect a dogfight."

You feel Shiro's eyes on you when you step out of the elevator and brush palms with Lance. It's a lazy low five, but the contact is a nice anchor after being brutalized for the first time in years. An audience member hands you a warm towel, praising the display of strength and metaphysical power, but you can only modestly shrug. It's easy to avoid the building chatter and Kolivan's wary glint with a towel pressed to your face.

"Are we talking again?" you ask Lance who trailed you across the room, seemingly waiting.

"For a minute," he teases, calling himself out. His arm slides along your shoulders, and he leans down to whisper into your ear. "Keith, you really need to learn how to do the emotional tuck and roll."

"I get it. It was bad form," you quietly admit, angry with yourself.

Lance shrugs, and you're needlessly frustrated when he puts space between your heads. "They think it's about money. It was a business fight. That's all."

"Don't tell me you said something."

He makes a single finger gun and shoots toward the wall with a mouthed  _pow_. "Always looking out for you, buddy."

This tugs a smile out of you, but your watch beeps in warning. You have meetings and barely time to shower. When Lance's also vibrates some seconds later, he mouths an aggravated groan.

Lance deflates. "Definitely not used to schedules anymore. Can you believe we were military men? We were in the  _military_."

"Voltron was still military. Since when do you have a schedule?" you ask, zipping up your jacket.

"Since I gave him one," Shiro says, seemingly appearing out of nowhere. You remind yourself he can literally do that now. The danger is intriguing, and you chastise yourself. "Same as I gave you one."

"Cemlo," you say, accusingly.

Shiro winks at you, and the playfulness makes Lance grip your shoulder. "You caught me on a good day. It was almost Slav."

"You really like fighting," you say too quickly. It's flirtatious. 

He brushes his bicep against yours and walks toward the main elevator. He lifts your folder like a trophy. "You know better than that, but good fight, Keith. Hope you feel better now."

Shiro leaves without a goodbye, and Lance hunkers down. He peers at the elevator. "Shiro is weird now."

"Shiro has his own life now," you counter.

"That makes one of us," he mutters, but Lance recovers. He lets you go in time for his watch to impatiently beep again. Lance checks his messages. "Alright,  _alright_  – oh, shit. That'd be Allura. I'll talk to you later, man. I can ignore a lot of people, but not her. I'd face Shiro before Allura."

The two of you make tentative plans to eat dinner together, but before you're even inside the 'classroom,' they're canceled.

 **LANCE** : Allura is trying to kill me.

You can only wince when he sends you a picture of his schedule.

 **KEITH:** Remember, buddy. This was your idea.

The night, after more lectures and thorough readings, you end up in a bar alone. It's one of the many speckled about the palace, and while you've never been too big of a drinker outside Lance's influence, you're suddenly thankful for the ability to indulge in a beer or two. It's imported Earth beer too, something Belgium, but the word Belgium feels alien. This has happened multiple times since arriving in New Altea. The fact gardens with spinach patches and apple trees exist within walking distance has yet to stop blowing your mind. It makes you wonder when Earth stopped feeling like home, normal.

"Hey."

Shiro's voice appears through music and babble. You take a sip from your tall glass and return it to the bar top before spinning on the floating stool.

He has a shirt this time. In fact, he's still wearing his IAPP suit sans helmet, which you've learned he only wears during critical meetings. It's a sign of respect that reminds you of dinners in your Paladin armor.

You hesitate. As the day has dragged on, you've accepted you humiliated yourself and nearly humiliated Shiro. It's not unlike you to lash out, but you thought most of the tendencies had passed after you lead Voltron.

"Hey," you weakly say, back sinking against the bar. "Are you seriously just finishing your last meeting?"

"Yeah." He scratches behind his ear and tilts his face toward the floor. "It's been a long day. I wanted to drop by to talk to you in the Blue Wing – maybe after dinner – but the map said you were here, so I just thought… I don't know what I thought, but I figured if you were in your room you wouldn't come out, and I promised –"

"You're nervous," you evenly interrupt. For some reason, you thinly smile. "I'm too tired to bite your head off. I plan on being here for a while. Do you want a drink?"

"I haven't touched one since the club."

This makes you laugh. Shiro smiles, and your heart fights your ribs for freedom.

"You and me both. I don't think I want to get that drunk ever again."

Shiro cards his bionic fingers through his subtle waves. "Too old for it."

"Too old for clubs," you say. "Officially bar bound."

"Not with Lance on the team," Shiro says, and the word 'team' lightens a load you didn't know you had.

Shiro takes a seat and orders a matching beer. He's quiet as he sips through the first third, brain apparently unwinding. It's habit to look at him and remember every private moment that gives you right to hold a grudge, but you're tired, and so is he. The fight wrung you out for the day, and you wonder if fighting every morning from then on will help maintain your aggressive nature. You hope so anyway.

"I didn't put Allura on your account to be spiteful," Shiro confesses. The sentence makes your whole back tense, but you unlock yourself for him. "You were right. I knew how it would look."

You tap the glass's rim and close your eyes. You want to say something, but you sigh, defeated. "I'm listening."

"You and I shared accounts. When I married Allura, you left without a word about your personal affairs, and after years of being gone, I had to make a decision. I could petition to take half the account and run or I could oversee the whole account with Allura and grow your numbers. I have plenty of money, and so does Allura. It didn't make sense to take from you. Allura understood and she continued using your account the same way she's used Hunk's and Pidge's. Lance's is the only one we haven't touched. He signed it over yesterday."

Lance's devotion surprises you, but you don't comment. You drink deeply from your glass, taking distractive gulps as you process the situation. You only speak when you set it down and exhale. Your next words are a backbreaker. 

"Sorry for lashing out, Shiro." It shouldn't be that hard. You assumed the worst. You were wrong. Deal with it. "I mean, I wanted to lash out, but for other reasons. Other things. That meltdown was on principle. You know I don't care about money."

"You're human-hearted," Shiro says, excusing you as he always has. He clears his throat. "I'm sorry, too. I'm sorry for a lot of things, actually. You don't want to be here. This place is an old wound, and it hurts."

You hear the unspoken sentence: I'm an old wound, and I hurt you.

"You were my best friend," you distantly say. There's more to that, but you can't sum it up. There's no way to sum up the sheer enormity of going to the end of the universe for someone over and over.

Something about that makes Shiro laugh. It's hushed and painful, like cracking dry skin. "You were my best friend, too. You were a lot of things to me."

"People normally move past things like this, right? Divorces happen. Relationships end every single day and people grow, but Shiro –" You pause to take another sip because your throat is closing. You have to wash down the thickness and coagulate your feelings. "Shiro, you were the person who knew me, so maybe that's it. I've been trying to understand why I'm still so bitter after years and – "

"You do  _not_ save the universe with someone and forget, Keith."

This is a callback to the day on his ship. You remember mentioning how humans can't conceptualize what it means to save the universe, and while you still think that's true enough, the act exists like a language. It's something that shapes your brain and impacts communication and relationships. Only those who were there actually understand it.

"The universe feels like a footnote," you say, masking pain by making it simple. "We went so wrong. Not only us but everyone else. No one imagined this is what we'd be like when it was all said and done. I wanted more."

Shiro darkly stares into his drink. "There's only so much trauma people can muscle through before they have to begin fending for themselves. I think it makes more sense than we want to admit."

"Ever consider taking your own advice?"

He has the nerve to smile. "Well, there always has to be an exception to the rule."

You chug the rest of your drink and gesture at the bartender for another. "Being a martyr isn't all it's cracked up to be, but I guess that's preaching to the choir at this point."

"Your heart couldn't take being the martyr," he quietly says, referencing something you both can't speak about in full.

"I wasn't you. I knew that, but I kept trying to be. Someday I'll figure out how I could tell myself that we were different as the Black Paladin but not as people trying to make a relationship make sense."

"You're not like me," he agrees and finishes his drink. "I once loved you for it every day. I never liked me that much to begin with."

"I'll never understand why," you passionately say.

This isn't the first time you've had this conversation with him.

Right then, you hate Shiro for letting you do what you did years ago, but you also blame yourself. You grip the bar's edge and fight wetting eyes. You've told yourself he left you in the reeds for so long it feels like a fact, but maybe you didn't help matters. Maybe you let the creek rise around him too.

Tomorrow you won't feel this way. Tomorrow you won't believe one strong wave of emotion can change everything. Tomorrow you will have pissed the beer from your system, and you will still resent him.

Shiro rolls his eyes to the side, smiling through exasperation, and you nudge him.

He suddenly recalls something. Shiro laughs. "Did Ryou ever give you back the Red Bayard?"

"No," you say, accusingly. "Your son has a vice grip on it. Whether or not Red wanted another paladin in my lifetime isn't up to her."

He lifts a palm as if to apologize, but continues to laugh instead. "Is that why you took the Black Bayard? Because a toddler took yours from you?"

"Don't act like I'm above proving to you I can still take it from you."

Shiro considers this, and he rolls his jaw as if tasting the words. "You're kidding."

"You've always been too willing to see the good in me."

He doesn't let that faze him. He chuckles. "Someone has to."

"Is this what we're going to do now?"

Shiro innocently shrugs as if he can't fathom what you're implying. "I'm not sure I know what you mean."

"No  _you're_  a good person," you mock. "No, Keith,  _you're_  a good person."

"I'd like to think we want to be good people."

"Do we?" you ask. 

"Come on, Keith. We are  _such_ good men," he says, joining in the mockery and wiping up an invisible tear he flicks in your direction. He manages to remain deadpan. "Remember when we were the good ole boys trying to leave our mark on human history? We joined the military thinking we could help Earth be more than Earth. We wanted to explore the solar system and maybe discover an ameba or two. We wanted to foster socially acceptable middle-class marriages filled with missionary sex after 8 PM. (The Lord's eyes are open until then.) Most of all, we wanted to go to the ball beneath the Myrtle trees, but then the war came!"

"But then the war came!" you dramatically lament, turning away like a damsel in distress even though that's always been Shiro's role. You take up a southern accent. "The maids have gone and the moths have done ate my silks. What will the neighbors think, Shiro?"

Shiro adds his own southern accent. "Honey, we're just gonna have to sell the cow."

"Not  _Kaltenecker_!" you wail, chest shaking from suppressed laughter. 

Shiro breaks character to snort. "God rest your soul, Kaltenecker."

You can't remember the last time you acted like this in public. Maybe you never have. It's unfathomable it's with Shiro of all people.

You and Shiro finish another drink together, and it lightens the darkness you've cloaked him in. You're seeing him as your friend for the first time since you left New Altea years before. It's strange, almost surreal, but as he talks through the new pieces of himself, it feels natural. Mostly, Shiro wants to talk about Ryou.

"I keep saying this, but he feels like the only thing I've done right."

"You've done plenty of things right, but I think making life wins by default."

It's disappointing when you realize you have to head back.

The corridor leading to the Blue Wing is dimly lit like rich honey. You weren't aware of how late it'd become until your watch reminded you there was no longer the chance to get a proper night's sleep.

"I shouldn't have kept you out," you say, apologizing with your tone.

"Don't worry about it. I'm usually in the Blue Wing as soon as I'm finished with my day. A change in routine isn't always a bad thing."

You snort. "Watch out, everyone. Shiro's going unhinged."

He easily laughs, and that easiness is a nail in the hands.

"You're so adult," you affectionately say. "You always have been."

"Not much room not to be," he admits, and when he rolls his eyes, you weakly shove him to the side. The beer makes playfulness easier, less meaningful.

You unconsciously slow your steps, and he matches your pace. "Cemlo said I'm almost done with his emergency curriculum. I'll be inside the Red Wing soon."

"You're going to be the breath of fresh air the IAPP needs, Keith. I wish you knew how out of hand it feels right now. Allura is an empress in every right, but she has her ways and ideas that remind me no one is qualified for that kind of job."

Your feet drag to a sudden halt. Roughly sighing, you rub along your undercut. "Has it been out of hand from the start?"

Shiro stops along with you. His stare is questioning, and he hasn't connected the implication. "What do you mean?"

You guiltily raise your gaze. "I saw that you weren't a part of the policy redrafting, Shiro."

"Allura did her best," he quickly says, and you have to admire his loyalty.

"I know," you say, and your next compassion surprises you, but then again, it is Shiro. "You did, too."

You step closer so that you can speak low. If anyone's nearby, they're no longer given access to the conversation. "I've been thinking, and Allura was right. I didn't finish what I started, but I plan to now. Personal history aside, Shiro, I'm going to make this right. I hate your policies. I hate your fucking monarchy, Your Highness –" Shiro's laughter interrupts you, but you talk through your own laugh. "This can be fixed. I'm going to do that with you. I'll fix this with you if you want to listen to me."

_With you. You._

"With you," Shiro repeats, stunned by the powerful memory.

"You and Allura," you smartly correct. "You, Allura and everyone else."

You grab one of his shoulders and hold tight. Your fingers curl into fabric while you search his expression for reassurance, and he's looking at you with tender scrutiny. This scrutiny becomes a weak hum, but before he can say anything, the Blue Wing's corridor goes black.

A charged pause appears. You disconnect the circuit with a disbelieving sigh, and Shiro mutters something about light sensors and sleep cycles. You go to drop your hand off his shoulder so you can continue the final trek to the Blue Wing's grand entrance, but like earlier, he seizes your wrist.

In the darkness, you can see the shadows bouncing off Shiro's face, how the moonlight pouring in from the surrounding windows reflects off his metal arm. Silence interfered only by the singing insects outside swells around you. You know this thick energy, have shared it with Shiro before, but it terrifies you considering the current climate of your lives. It knots your lower abdomen and sends a flash of heat to your face.

"We should go up before your guards think we're intruders," you suggest, but it's half-hearted.

"Do you want to?"

It amazes you how you've always been selfish and _known_. The time during the trials has haunted you for nearly a decade. Always, you're thinking about yourself and whatever internal dialogue you're processing at the time. In many ways, you acknowledge that you're unbearable. It's no wonder things with Shiro imploded.

You want to do what's right. You left because you knew this sickness is inside you. Had you stayed behind, then you would've thrown yourself at Shiro's life like a plague.

It's a shame you can't lie to him. "No."

That's all Shiro needs to shatter like glass.

Skilled and sure, Shiro tugs you closer only to spin you both. Your back crashes against the nearest wall, and there's no time to process actions. His hand carefully cups your jaw, fingers pressing into your cheek, and he guides your head back. Your palms slide up his clothed biceps and fear you've never known washes over you. You've never wanted an act half as much, but it's wrong. God, but you embody wrong, don't you? You can't let go of the fact he was yours first. In your current form, he was also your first everything, and he promised he'd be your last. At one point, you two were all each other needed. 

You don't believe in puritanical ideations, but you do believe in set agreements.

"Shiro," you gruffly murmur, suddenly taking the front of his suit with both fists.

He hovers his mouth over yours, eyes drinking in your gaze like something he'd nurse at the bar. "Talk to me, Keith. We're talking this time."

You realize you're already panting. You're trying not to think about the night at the club or how vivid the dream you shared was. You told him you only remembered two legs and his hair, but that was a lie.

"Don't you dare regret me."

He slides his gaze to your mouth. He repeats your sentence from earlier that morning. "That's my line, isn't it?"

There's not enough oxygen in the universe to fill your lungs, and like a collapsing star, you fall inside yourself and yank him down. Shiro's mouth hotly presses to yours, opening on contact and hungrily splitting your lips with his tongue. You indulgently lick back, breath wildly fanning out in between lewd pops that are immediately wet and accented by throaty moaning. He tastes like the afterthoughts of beer and every 'I love you' you made him swish around his mouth and swallow.

Shiro tugs at your bottom lip with teeth, inciting a sharp gasp. It's the stepping off point for your hitched breathing that drives upward from your chest. The pitchy noise is a calling card for Shiro. It's been years, but he remembers every cue you had.

"Fuck," you murmur, not believing for a second the moment is real.

You have to stop.

Shiro's mouth slides down your neck and licks back up. Your ears stand at attention, but they drift back when he apologetically kisses the bruising along your cheekbone. It's from that morning's fight.

"Don't get remorseful," you whisper, knowing his mind too well.

Called out, Shiro wryly smiles and returns his mouth to yours. This time it's slower, the lovingness more present. Shiro slips his fingers into the hair behind your ears. He holds you still, and you begin to kiss each other as if you shared a bedroom yesterday and not some six years ago.

You don't want to stop.

The hands you've placed on his biceps slip downward. You hold his waist, imagining how much simpler this would be if he were in his vest and pants. The rush to see who could undo the other's clothing first used to be your favorite, but be it title or clothing, the IAPP has closed Shiro off to you in the most derisive ways.

"God, I'm dripping," you breathe, aggravated that a kiss is all it took.

Shiro doesn't bother to think. "I can help with that."

You're in the middle of a hallway directly outside where your friends and Shiro's family are sleeping. It's disrespectful, and morally speaking, reprehensible.

"You're joking," you say, testing the water. "You wouldn't dare."

He presses his nose to your temple. "A lot of life has happened between now and the night you left. We're relearning each other. Always remember that."

A kiss was bad enough. You could hate yourself for that kiss for lifetimes. Thoughts drift and Shiro shifts back, grabbing your chin again. His thumb slides down your bottom lip, and like the whore Lance jokingly referred to you as, you suck it. You're putting on a show, and you're nauseous with yourself.

"Only fingers," he reassures. Shiro's eagerness makes your stomach flutter. "I'll make it quick."

You pop off his thumb. "Only fingers."

You slip your hands beneath the waistband of your jogging tights and give Shiro penetrating eye contact. He shamelessly watches you slip them down, and suddenly, your self-destructive side wants to see how far he'll go for you. It's sick, but you saved the universe. That alone should make you upstanding. You are not upstanding, though. You want him to shove you to your knees and fuck your throat raw. 

Your immediacy nonpluses Shiro. The soft magenta glow emitting from the ooze between your thighs isn't as bright as it once was, but you've been told it's an aging thing. Shiro slips a hand between you both and the thought of him hard and unable to please himself satisfies your sadistic streak.

"Are you sure?" you ask. He's known to be too giving. You have to double check.

Shiro's fingers dip into the black curls along your pubic bone. He's careful at first, sliding them along the hair and dragging the digits up your thick happy trail. The anticipation is agonizing but also thrilling. You kiss him, encourage him, and Shiro has the nerve to chuckle. To think, he almost acts like he has the upper hand.

"You are taking your sweet time," you breathlessly taunt, shifting your hips to encourage him.

Shiro nips your jawline. "You are as impatient as ever."

He boldly slips his fingers downward, and his middle finger glides between your flowering folds. You seize at the coolness, your body always critical of touch, but Shiro patiently waits for you to unclench.

Your physiology is the last thing you want to think about right then. It will ruin all potential ecstasy, so you let Shiro think for you. He pets the two tentacles that descended from your entrance, letting them curl around his fingers and fondly leak onto his sleeve. The touch forces heat to flood your nose, and when Shiro reaches beyond the tendrils for the sensitive bumps above your profusely leaking hole, your breathing shakes.

He strokes the leaking nodules with his knuckles, and your eyebrows sharply climb toward your hairline.

"Shiro," you mutter, already enthralled with his touch. A thick stream oozes from you in response. He shamelessly scoops it up and rubs it along those tiny nerve clusters in languid circular motions.

You're trying not to lose yourself too fast, but the scorching build is instantaneous. Your breathing is haggard, and you lock your intense stare onto Shiro's meeting gaze. You don't break eye contact and lift your arms above your head so they can rest against the wall. The position displays how your chest is heaving and falling for him.

He begins talking. He remembers you love it when he talks. "Since the day you left, I've fucked my fist to thoughts of this. Thoughts of you grinding on my face, making me choke on your slick."

"We could do that right now," you offer. It occurs to you that you might be out of your mind. This isn't you. Something's amiss and you should be ashamed. You want to be ashamed.

"Another time."

Shiro leaves no room to protest.

Two thick fingers plunge inside, and you choke on a desperate moan. Your body is instantly flooded with magma that knocks the wind from your sails, and Shiro presses his chest to yours, pinning you in place. You don't mind. Not when he hooks his fingers forward and aggressively begins rubbing your puffy frontal wall. Your self-perception tells you to hate your body, hate that it feels good even after years of adjusting to your new form, but your walls flutter shut around Shiro's fingers. They quickly become a vice grip he can barely fuck even though you're trickling globules onto his rocketing palm.

"Has it been that long for you?" Shiro whispers into the skin beneath your throat. "I thought –"

"It's been a while," you rasp, biting your bottom lip with fangs.

Your head smacks against the wall as you grunt, frustrated. Every attempt to relax is futile, but you can't blame yourself. As much as you want Shiro to pound you until you're gaping, it's a stressful situation. Unsure of what to say, you breathlessly murmur his name, pleading with it. Shiro knowingly kisses down your throat.

"Relax for me, Keith. Relax. We'll open you back up."

He's coddling you, babying you. You hate it, but it helps. Your body relishes in his comforting voice, and soon, Shiro's fingers are effortlessly slipping in and out. Once he finishes bottoming out his fingers, a rhythmic sucking sound fills the hallway, and you groan his name. Shiro's soaked fingers rapidly fill you over and over. His thumb slides upward to massage the collection of unique sensors that line the upper half of your incandescent lips, making his name your chant.

It's dangerous territory, but you don't stifle your groaning. The sounds are husky, right from the bottom of your throat. Shiro recklessly fucks you harder. A third finger joins the others, and your knees threaten to give out. Shiro promptly notices, and though you're not _that_ much smaller, he reaches beneath you and hoists you up with his other arm. It's a hell of an athletic display, and it murders your discretion.

"Fuck me," you command. Your brain is pumping you full of Galra hormones, and your voice has drifted from performative neediness to an undeniable growl.

"I can't," he laments, but his hand never stops. You hiss back air. "Not here, Keith."

You squirm within his hold, trying to escape even though you know that if he stopped, you would choke him out. Your thighs are sweating as they tightly wrap around his waist, and your hips begin snapping forward. He has you trapped, you realize. You're his.

"This could be your cock," you whisper against his mouth. You take hold both sides of his head and shamelessly moan his name. The display catches Shiro off guard, but he was right. It's been years and you're relearning one another in multiple ways. You keep talking even if the words shatter with every re-entrance. "I still remember how big it is, Shiro. The first time you stuffed it inside me like this I came with one thrust. That could happen again. I know it could. Make me come like that, Shiro. Make me fucking come."

He licks your upper lip and you fleetingly suck his tongue. "Keith, you're killing me. Not here."

It's unlike you to beg. "I'll be quiet. We can be quiet, and then you can fill me up. Make me messy."

Shiro retains self-control, but he's sweating like a stallion. " _Not here_."

His fingers haven't stopped the entire time and your vision is cloudy, head light.

"Shiro, more." You're already close. The tension tautens your abdominals, but you don't want it to end. You kiss him until frothy spit leaks down your chin. "Oh, God, God -"

Shiro thrusts a fourth finger inside, and the rough stretch makes you scream. Confident in your ability to hold onto him with your thighs, Shiro smacks his robotic hand over your mouth. He jackhammers upward, and his intense stare is delicious. Still screaming, you unravel with him pounding you raw. Your head falls back, and the muffled groaning saturates the hall, mixing with Shiro's yearning grunts. It sounds like he's knifing you in revenge, and your nails dig into Shiro's broad shoulders only to violently rip them down his sculpted arms.

It's good. It's good. It's so fucking good, and it's Shiro.

"Is this enough," he hisses into your ear. "Is this messy enough, Keith?"

You're coming.

You didn't expect to come this fast or this  _hard_ , but your tight hole is squeezing Shiro's fingers. It pulsates once before sporadically quivering around him, and a punishing electric current rushes up your spine. It knocks your sight white, and the tentacles assertively wrap around Shiro's wrist to make him stay. They're confusing his arm for cock, and you're almost certain this has never happened before. Your body has always known better.

Dissolving into a deep ocean orgasm, your hole spills purple sludge. It runs down your thighs and onto Shiro's legs, but you could care less. It's everything you've fantasized about since leaving.

"Christ," you pant against his hand. " _Shiro_."

You finish, and your bangs are sweat-matted against your forehead. You stare at the ceiling as reality tries to clear the mist hiding your common sense, but it doesn't happen soon enough. You pull Shiro's hand off your mouth, and when your tentacles refuse to let him go, he frenziedly kisses you.

Shiro stops to catch his breath. He glances down and tries to retract his hand. The tendrils curl tighter, and you're humiliated by your own body. This isn't news. "You're a little transparent right now, guys."

You realize he's talking to the tentacles. It shouldn't be endearing, but it is.

"Don't talk to them like that. They're doing their best after a hell of a dry spell."

Careful about not leaving marks, Shiro kisses your neck until the tentacles accept no one is fertilizing anything. Your thoughts are like the screaming neighbors a wall over, and you're trying to eavesdrop, but nothing is clear. Somehow, it's still entertaining. It's like rubbernecking your own car crash.

He sets you down, and though you're both covered in glowing sludge, you tug up your pants as if it'll make you any less indecent. Suddenly, neither one of you can look at the other. Shiro crosses his arms, and you subconsciously mirror his pose as the wordlessness becomes an eighteen-story wall.

It has been five seconds, and the sheer amount of guilt and terror has drowned your fire.

You're disgusting.

"That can't happen again," you quickly say, wanting to do damage control before you're inside the Blue Wing. He's going to shower and then sleep beside his wife. He's going to wake up and kiss his son good morning.

Shiro takes too long to speak for himself. He's belatedly stunned. "No. Never again. No one can find out."

"No one," you quickly agree, eyes leaving his face.

Side by side, you walk into the Blue Wing, and as if you're ready to rip out his throat, you coldly tell him goodnight. He civilly returns the parting words and strides away from you like a bat out of hell. You watch him go, hoping you won't need to talk to him for a long time. It's then you remember an entire room saw you agree to meet him at six in the morning, and you wonder if it would make logistic sense to drown yourself in your tub.

As you climb the spiral stairs to your bedroom, you can still feel him thrusting into you, grunting low and determined to please you. Guilt or not, you decide it's material you'll be fucking yourself to for years.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have another 15,000-word update along with my apology for every character's behavior. Out of all my fics, the comments on this story tend to be the most thought-provoking. I read all of them, and they really do impact where this story goes. Keep that in mind.

It has been five seconds, and guilt and terror have already drowned your fire. The stale air between you two has grown cold, and for a moment, you think you can see your breath.

"That can't happen again," Keith snaps, bitter. He's so bitter you made him come.

Not only that, but he's doing damage control before you part ways inside the Blue Wing. The hastiness startles you. Mostly because he's not the one who has to sleep beside his oblivious wife. In the morning, Keith doesn't have to wake up and kiss his toddler son with his ex-lover's moans bludgeoning him. You already know the beating will be in Morse code, too, and that Morse code will say a single word.

\- - - ... . .-. ..-. ..- -.-. -.- . .-. or 'motherfucker'

Keith is only accountable for himself.

This is not his Great Risk, and yet he one-ups you with guilt and fear. Why this bothers you seems egocentric, but you have reasons. It rings like another line in Keith's selfish pattern.

He uses cryptic methods derivative from childhood isolation and self-comfort, but your patience with it died on your wedding day. Standing behind you as your best man, he gave you a screaming look. Keith's haunted expression said many things, but mainly one.

One you haven't forgiven.

_How dare you not ask how high after I tell you to jump?_

Had you followed Keith's orders, then the only jumping you would have done included a cliff and no safety net. It wasn't only Allura's feelings at the altar. It was her kingdom. It was her greatest life's fight to date, and it was breathing a sigh after ten-thousand years.

You eventually speak, stumbling over the shock. "No. Never again. No one can find out."

"No one," he agrees, cutting his gaze from you.

Your word doesn't mean anything to him, but it's enough. It has to be.

Keith doesn't look at you when he says 'goodnight,' and you're fine with that. There are other things on your mind. Other things being Keith's solidifying emission coating your hands and clothes. Already it's hard like thick, glowing wax, but memories from sex on the castle ship remind you not to roll your palms together. Peeling it will leave behind bioluminescent crumb trails. You have to sprint to the shower, but rather than risk storming past Allura's sleeping form, you resourcefully recall the Black Lion bedroom.

In the unused shower, you vigorously fuck your fist and come so hard your brain disappears down the drain like suds. The rage you exhibited during the fingering isn't lost on you, but Keith's aching response and acceptance of it isn't either. Keith was high and mighty at the end, but you're not ignorant to Keith's nature. You find it funny he thinks you could forget every bit of him.

It's no secret Keith would have loved this from you seven years ago.

Had you bent him over on your wedding day, he would have reveled in the affirmation. After all, he practically begged you to do exactly that.

It's that scathing thought that makes you shut yourself down. No longer as tipsy as you want to be, you drag your soaked form from the shower, enraged with the cyclic situation.

Keith played so many roles in your life before this, but he no longer feels like even one of those people. It's your fault, you want to say, but even if it is, you don't know how to fix the situation. You don't even know where to begin.

Not fingering him would have been a good start.

You groan and sit on the cold bathroom bench, rubbing your temples as if a simple massage is all you need to undo every error in your life.

Why wasn't the universe big enough to get lost in? You could have left with him.

After fighting the urge to message Keith, you fall asleep and wake up on the unused bedroom's futon, buried beneath weighted blankets and distilling the carnal evening's hangover. The suns aren't up, but you've been beating them to the punch since you can remember.

Rubbing your forehead, you check your watch for updates, and with a preparatory breath, drag yourself from the protective bedding. You need to change for the gym in your actual bedroom, but all you want is your caffeinated smoothie and for your fallen stomach to return to its proper place.

Until you stand outside your actual bedroom door, that is. Staring down the ornate lion handles, you add a time machine to the list. You dwell on how far back you'd let it take you.

Before the wedding? Before the Galra took your arm? Before the night you promised Keith you would come back?

There is nothing you can do to soften the guilt, so you let yourself inside and stride past the levitating four poster bed. The lights aren't programmed to turn on for you, and they only brighten when Allura's alarm sounds, which will be soon. For someone who's regarded as a hero, you're a coward. You have to be gone before she wakes up or you'll vomit.

Changed, you check your watch again but pause before striding for the door. The guilt is suddenly paramount, and you punish yourself by making yourself look at your sleeping wife.

Her highest shoulder is naked and peeking out from beneath the periwinkle blanket. Smooth face patterned by blue shadows bouncing off the nightlights, her body is protected by a pillow fortress. Upon leaving her ten-thousand-year stasis, Allura started to self-soothe by letting the plush collection cradle her and impersonate touch. Eventually, she found physical comfort in Team Voltron's found family and you, but the hovel remained.

 _Never again_ , you think and carefully shut the bedroom door behind yourself. You know better than to look at your son before you leave. He doesn't deserve your remorseful energy.  _Never again._

The private training room's overlook is bustling when you arrive.

You've already finished your shake, and you're antsy from the need to bleed frustration through physical exertion. It's too bad you have to thumb through customs. You drop your cup into the trash dispensary and spot Kolivan standing beside the elevator, arms crossed and the least chatty of the crowd. He greets you with a polite nod, and you return it, but an ambassador distracts you to compliment your physique.

Kolivan will meet you downstairs when you finish a warmup circuit. You hope training is grueling.

In the background, someone utters Keith's name. The single syllable collapses onto you like an avalanche.

They're likely referencing the sparring session from the the day before, and you can imagine the gossip surrounding how it looked. Your past relationship, though clandestine, was transparent before you married Allura. While almost a decade removed from it, rumors surrounding the Paladins of Voltron will be textbook speculation, academic in nature, even if it's private for you.

You avoid further conversations and take the standoffish road to the elevator. Inside, you open and close your fists, simmering in memories. You want Keith, but you want the Keith who consoled you.

The door slides open, and suddenly, you know the real reason Keith's name was mentioned.

"Since when is Shirogane late," Keith says, hardly posing it as a question.

He's in Alforis athletic wear again, postured with sweat running down his cut biceps and both hands on his naked hips. He's panting, and his hard abdominals are on display, rapidly rising and falling. His ears are thrown back, expressing what you assume is aggravation, but it's a quiet kind.

It's the kind that tells you he still knows how to keep his feelings to himself when it's required.

Between Keith's split lips, you see fangs.

"I didn't think you'd show," you warily admit, stepping forward and looking toward the viewing room's window. Kolivan is watching you, indecipherable as ever.

Keith ambles forward, assessing your whole person as if looking for more reasons to not trust you. "I might be a little touch and go, but I know where my priorities are."

Does he, though? You're not exactly convinced.

"Right. Priorities being strength," you tease, mouth slanting into a smile.

He smiles too. "Sure. We'll call it that."

This is performative, you reiterate to yourself, but you don't dig into Keith's head to ask him if he really wants to do this right now.

"Let me warm up," you say and unzip your hoodie. You toss it onto a sleek white bench and Keith's eyes swoop down. "While I do that, make sure you want to go through with this."

He rubs a clavicle, mouth parting in hesitation. He recovers with a breathy laugh. "Since when does Shiro intimidate his pupils?"

You roll your eyes and jog toward the track, calling over your shoulder. "You know what I mean, grasshopper."

Keith scoffs at 'grasshopper' and returns to the pull-up bar.

It's not the interaction you expected, but you're willing to come to terms with the fact you can't know everything or even begin to guess how Keith thinks these days. Time has reshaped you both, and he is no longer from your mold, and you're no longer wholly sculpted by the life you once shared with him.

It occurs to you this could be positive progression so long as he meets you halfway. You have to relearn Keith, and Keith has to relearn you, and though you cannot escape the way thinking about the night before makes your guts stir, you want to trust in his assertive refusal to make it a thing.

The need was in your systems, and it's been purged.

You're wrapping your knuckles, watching Keith tug himself up and over the bar like a gymnast, when you speak again.

"The exercises I want to go over might seem elementary, but I want you to keep in mind I'm not being condescending. I need to evaluate where you stand so I know where to start."

"Yes, sir," he says, serious.

Keith curls over the pole once more and gracefully drops to his feet.

"Don't hold back whatever it is, Shiro."

An hour into basic training drills, you realize Keith is rusty. Your first fight with him was built on emotional output, not skill dissection, but you see his sloppiness is a permanent fixture.

He's uncontrolled. He's incredibly unfocused, and fragments from his childhood are sticking out, infected with pus. It reminds you of splinters and how, while healing, the dermis pushes them out on its own. That is Keith. His skin is purging embedded anger, and he is covered in painful red sores.

Keith takes an elbow to his sweaty throat, colliding with a mat and skidding to a rough halt.

Before he orients himself, you critique. "Your focus has regressed. I need you step back for a second. Think about your form, Keith. Even the most seasoned veterans in the IAPP forget this, and that's fine, but you have to relearn how to coexist with form and fast."

He blinks at the ceiling, clearly unsettled by how easy it is for you to knock him off his feet. His next words are cool and concise, but you hear the strain. "Patience yields focus."

"Hold onto that."

"Do you ever say something so much it starts to lose meaning?" he asks. "I love you being the obvious one, but sometimes you let go of the words and phrases when they start to feel overused. It's hard to find replacement phrases for the important ones. Patience yields focus or think for once in your life?"

"They're not the same," you assure him. "The older we get the more work it takes to hold onto certain feelings and lessons."

"I'm aware."

You wonder if the moment Keith left every piece of advice you gave him became generic. You don't blame him, but you also can't coddle the impact rejecting your words could leave on his legacy. He took your advice and honed it into something greater than you ever could. You're unsettled watching your hero hit his knees again and again, a reedy ghost of the entity you once celebrated simply for breathing.

"Back to basics," you warmly reiterate and extend your hand to help him to his feet. "You'll remember what it meant to you soon enough."

He takes your hand with a clap, and you dig your thumbs into each other's hand. You heave him to his feet, and Keith shakes off the blow to his ego with much more grace this time. Not a thread of hurt hits his expression. You don't advocate for internalization, even if you're the victim of your own, but you do prefer students with dignity.

The touch lingers longer than it should, but you don't acknowledge it, and neither does Keith. He drifts away from you and checks the time, cracking his neck. Like a steel hook to your spine, you want to touch him. You want to reach for his wrist and slide your fingers up his arm, mouth his neck and count tight gasps. The way his body held onto your fingers like a vice grip makes your teeth ache.

It's primal intuition, and you wish you could take its throat and cut it. Keith is beautiful, but that's not enough. You wonder if that's what's driving your desire. Keith was your best friend. He was your person.

You want that intimacy again. You want to be entirely unafraid with someone, and it's like tearing teeth to accept the yearning is unquenchable. For the rest of your life, your heart will enter mournful fits.

You conclude training with time to hit the showers.

In the elevator, Keith and you stare one another down. Whatever self-preservation you two prided yourselves on is gone, and you knowingly search the other's face.

"I'm sorry," you say. It's like breathing for the first time in hours, coming up for air after hibernating at the bottom of a lake so dark and dreary the water appears black. "I said it yesterday, and I'm saying it again. I'm sorry."

Keith tilts his head and averts his stare, biting a lip and suddenly sad. He laughs, a painful expression hitting him as he closes his eyes. "Me too, Shiro."

You mean fingering him, and so does he, but you wish you both meant more.

"I liked it," Keith laments. "It felt right. You felt good, and it was a fucking  _hand_."

The elevator door slides open, and he steps through into the lounge. He's out of the lift and out of reach, but you don't dare trail him to the showers. You don't trust yourself, and it's harrowing to know you're in danger with him.

Keith stops to speak to Kolivan, and you passively grab Keith's shoulder as you pass him. You squeeze but push off toward the door, uninterested in intruding on their conversation.

It's Kolivan who stops you.

"Shiro," he casually says. You appreciate the assertive familiarity. You're not his emperor. "I'm putting in a request for you take Keith to the New Altea base. As you're aware, I cannot escort him myself."

Kolivan's regimen is equal to Allura's and yours, but you have the higher ground to alter your schedule for personal pursuit. You could mandate Kolivan's time off, but he doesn't like to be remapped and you need his good opinion. You thoughtfully drag a hand down your neck and look to Keith who is waiting for your refusal. The Blade of Marmora was how you cinched him into tagging along to Balmera Palace in the first place, so you owe him. You'd want to even if you didn't owe him, honestly.

"Sure, Keith, but after your first IAPP meeting."

Kolivan nods and Keith looks away. You think you hear Keith thank you.

Allura finds you in the Red Wing's central nerve after you've forced down lunch. She's typing on a tablet and not looking at you, but she's keen on your presence. Your blood pressure spikes.

"Where were you last night?" she nonchalantly asks.

Like hot breath on your neck, you distantly recall Keith begging for you to fuck him in the open hall. You swallow the bile rock climbing your throat and decide to lie by omission.

"I was at a bar with Keith and didn't want to wake you up, so I slept in the Black Lion room."

Well, aren't you fucking despicable?

Allura smiles at the screen and sighs, eyes fluttering upward for a split-second only to dart down. "Thoughtful to a fault. I was worried, Shiro. I saw you'd changed, so I let it be, but send me a message next time."

You apologetically nod. "I'll remember."

She's worth more than what you've done, and you know it. You're all too aware, and your skin wants to split from your expanding self-loathing.

"Have you heard the babble?" she asks, and you watch her face, waiting for her to finish the thought. "The rumors Keith is almost finished with his acclimation are spreading, and it's ruffling feathers. People are divided on what they believe is long lost entitlement not only to the IAPP but to you."

You mouth 'me,' trying to understand what she means before you have to ask.

"Why didn't you tell me you were training him?"

That. Right.

"It was sudden," you admit, which isn't a lie. That's something you would have told her given the chance. "Considering our past friendship, it's hardly what I'd call entitlement. Considering who he is –"

"You don't have to tell me, Shiro. It's the public that's angry he left them behind. Imagine if your savior disappeared for seven years without one public appearance."

He did, but you don't put much stock into that betrayal. Keith is a person, and your reverence for him has settled over the years.

"So they worship him until he's a person again, and then ask him to prove himself worth exoneration." You're not surprised. You're annoyed. "There are temples for him directly outside the palace walls."

You hate those temples. If Keith knew about them, then he would hate them too. Allura finds them distasteful at best, but you both refuse to set religious limitations on New Altea if no one's being killed. Cults are common, Allura reminds you from time-to-time, and you and Team Voltron did save the universe from devastation. It's an objectively big deal.

"People always prefer concepts," Allura says and nods toward the nearby door. The guards have already assumed their positions. "We're going to be late. Sendak has new intel on the Galra secessionists, and I have a feeling he wants to get in every word he can before he has to combat Keith on the matter."

"He can talk all he wants," you say, entertained by the thought of Keith and Sendak bumping heads, "but Keith isn't going to touch the word war without a fight. None of us will."

"No one is going to war," Allura says, words like an ice pick. It's a looming threat that rotates through the palace like a moon cycle. There are always great wars going on, but so far, none have been linked to the IAPP's implementation. "We will settle our differences with the Galra renegades the way my father would. We will put peace above death."

"No death for peace," you say, reciting the Red Wing's motto. You repeat it in Altean.

She repeats it back to you.

Torrential meetings keep your mind at bay during the days that follow, and for once, you're thankful for the energy diplomacy saps from you.

When you're not deputizing, training Keith and being a father, you're tucked away in either your private room or the Black Garden, reading Earth books and staring off into the distance with your perverted fantasies. Sometimes, Matt descends from his laboratory to mourn scheduling, but he is also your therapist without name. You were close to begin with, once boyfriends, but that feeling has long since been displaced, a youthful carousing you both fondly cringe at and no longer analyze.

Besides, Matt is married with two children. He constructed them in a pod using two human men's DNA. He was offered a revolting sum from Earth's pharmaceutical companies for the information, but he spitefully donated his research instead, banning it from multiple corporations.

He's indignant in all the right ways yet somehow still rooted in the wonder that makes a great scientist.

"Seeing Keith around the palace is weird," Matt listlessly says, a rare bottled Coke in hand. You're seated in the Black Garden together, watching its oily waterfall crash into an infinity pool rimmed by white sand and pebbles so clear they look like glass. "After everything, he was the last person I expected under Cemlo's tutelage."

Aside from maybe Lance, Matt is the only person in Balmera Palace who knows exactly what transpired between you and Keith.

"He's as much a part of the IAPP as we are," you predictably say and bite into an orange slice. "The administration was more his idea than mine and Allura's."

"Can I ask how you feel about it?" Matt asks, honest intrigue giving his nosiness less bulk. "Without the leadership insulation, I should add. Don't say the right thing, Your Highness."

You still give a guarded answer. "I'm tired, and he makes me nostalgic."

Desire is often rooted in nostalgia, you recall. Affairs are an ache for the past.

"Nostalgia," Matt muses. He takes a long drink and lifts the bottle to watch the carbonation rise. "That would explain the training routine and all the partying you and the others have been doing. Don't look at me like that, Shiro. We all love a good tabloid. I know you enough to see what's true and what isn't."

"Partying isn't nostalgic. I never partied while piloting Black or Red or even Blue," you counter, trying not to laugh at yourself.

Matt mocks you before you can. "My name's Takashi Shirogane, and I virtually piloted Voltron, the universe's most powerful weapon, with one hand."

"Not what I meant," you murmur and rub your warm face.

Matt eases up and lifts a palm in surrender.

"I know. Look, Shiro, as a longtime friend, I feel like it's important for me to tell you to be careful with Keith. Not because I don't think you respect Allura or what the marriage means, but because I know the terms Keith left on. No one got closure, and it was an intense affair. That's dangerous."

"It's been seven years," you remind him, but you're being deceptive. You're also condemning yourself more because acknowledging the years implies you knew how ridiculous it was to still want Keith even before you touched him. "That's so long to hold onto feelings from your twenties."

You fight the chilly thought that Matt might know what you and Keith did, but there's no way. You scraped the footage from the Blue Wing's security data, not even the keeping images for jerking off.

"What's seven years to the universe?" Matt cryptically asks.

Matt isn't a poet, so you know there's concrete substance in the riddle. Be it tactfully psychological or not, you ponder through the rest of your snack and let what many would see as an insult roll off you.

"We're not even friends right now. We're past it," you say, sounding far away inside your head. "I have a wife and child, and we're working for another baby. Keith doesn't threaten that."

"You're a good man," Matt says, "but I hope you two can be friends, even if it's distant. I know it might be too soon to worry, but if Allura and you are having trouble conceiving, then the Green Wing can help."

"It's the time to even try that's the problem." You decide to unroll a long rug. Matt is your only chance to these days. "We barely have time for Ryou, and I don't want children who love their nannies more than their parents. Allura doesn't either. Anyway, the rebel stress isn't good for a pregnancy, and I think we're looking at a war. I can't sit with Allura through another series of miscarriages. Not when I have to take the blame for my subpar human genetics that refuse to stick to her uterus."

"I wish I'd never disclosed that information," Matt murmurs, apologetic down to his stare. "We diagnosed those spontaneous abortions as stress."

"She doesn't mean it when she's upset," you tell yourself, not Matt. "It's hard. She's under more pressure than I can imagine. I wish I could do more for her."

"Psychological treatment shouldn't be so inherently human," he mutters, swiping his thumb over his bottom lip. "I still think we should attempt to assign human psychologists and anthropological teams to the IAPP. It would do wonders."

"No one wants to be studied by humans if it means making a base on their planet," you remind him. "Not since the Galra and human DNA research was prematurely leaked to the public."

"Another mistake on the Green Wing's end," Matt dolefully whispers. "It shouldn't matter. Keith is Galra, and people respect Keith."

On the way back to your private office, you stumble upon Keith and Pidge greeting. Before turning the corner, you grab yourself by the scruff and yank yourself into hiding. The pair is hovered around a circular table overlooking the Red Garden, sunlight pouring in but not overwhelming on the eyes. The suns are setting and spilling lukewarm rays across the table and glimmering white floor. It's pure citrus.

"Work troubles?" she asks Keith, lifting her coffee mug in solidarity. Keith wordlessly takes a seat beside her. He pours himself a mug but doesn't sip the dark brew. "No answer. I see, so then it's boy troubles again. Always with the boy troubles, floozy. This is Lance's channel, not Keith's heartbreak hour."

Keith sourly laughs and lets his forehead hit his palm. He eventually lifts his face and solemnly stares through the glass, contemplating his thoughts but clearly in the mood to talk.

"I don't know what I want," Keith whispers, drumming his fingers. "I don't know what I'm doing here."

"That's cryptic."

A theme, you think, agreeing with Pidge.

When Keith doesn't respond with more, she goes to work on him. There are few people who can dissect people as well as Pidge. It's just not in the way people usually want when upset.

"This isn't the time to tell you not knowing is probably the single most universal feeling to have in your twenties," Pidge pokes, but she doesn't dig into his vulnerabilities beyond that. "But Lance is a piece of work. I can't imagine what it's like doing the unspeakable tango with him once, let alone for years."

"Yeah," Keith vacantly says.

You don't want to be self-interested enough to think Keith doesn't want to discuss Lance, but there's the selfish hopefulness. You drop the thought and realize you're eavesdropping. You had pride, once.

Pidge impatiently grunts, waiting for more, but Keith only sighs.

"Since you insist I tear it from you because you're never  _easy_. What's the story, stud? I expected you two to be committed. You know, the big romantic gesture of sailing the galaxy together and continuing the good fight was as gross as it was touching, especially after that nasty breakup you had with our overlord."

You sniff.

_Overlord._

"It's not my place to talk about it yet," he says. "We have different morals. That much I think I can say. He went against everything I am, and well, why would I settle down with that?"

She pours cream into his coffee. "Sounds like a lot."

Keith takes a sip and shrugs. "Tell me what isn't anymore."

"Did he do something illegal? Well, more illegal than Lance leans toward."

He peers into his cup and impulsively sticks his finger into it, swirling. "If I tell you this, then it can't leave us. Lance will know I said something, and I don't want Hunk to know through word of mouth."

"Your code of honor must be screaming," Pidge says, but she's clearly sympathetic. The concern behind her wrap-around glasses is evident in her forehead wrinkle. "Scouts honor, Keith. I won't say shit."

Keith stalls, eyes flicking from left to right like a cornered animal. His knuckles whiten around his cup, but his reservations collapse with a hard sigh.

"Lance knocked up one of the princesses on planet Vogriri," Keith says. His teeth tear through the words' meat, and you close your eyes, disappointed in Lance. "He paid the kingdom off using our savings, but he's going to pay them off for the rest of his life to keep his hands clean. He doesn't want to join their kingdom, but Vogriri's advisors have tried to use every ploy to get the Blue Paladin to be king."

Vogriri.

The planet's name rings a bell, but an ominous one. You can't place it.

"So those rumors were true?" Pidge asks, much too loud. Keith shoots her a hard stare, and she lowers her voice. "The rumors are true, and he used your money to cover his tracks? Lance wouldn't do that. Lance is a lot, but he's not a thief."

Pidge has clearly forgotten the stunt Lance pulled with Hunk. Then again, stealing someone's heart does seem a bit gauche for relevancy's sake.

"He claims they had him disarmed and cornered, but look, I don't care about the money. Saving it was his idea anyway." Keith's words stiffen, the tight rasping a sign he's fighting the full breadth of his hurt. "It's the kid that bothers me. He hasn't seen it. He doesn't want to see it. I don't think he ever will see it."

"Wait, wait. You mean Lance hasn't seen the baby? Not even once? How old is the thing?"

"I'm not sure, but if he's as human as I've heard, then he'll be walking soon." Keith rubs his thumb along his opposite hand. "What gets me about this is he knew what it was like for me to grow up without my mom and dad. We even talked about what losing Shiro did to me, but when I told him he was being a piece of shit and that he needed to think about a life where he was abandoned by his family, it wasn't enough for him."

"Did you kick his ass?" Pidge loosely jokes. "Because if not, then I'll do it for you."

Keith laughs like vinegar. "I pinned him down and screamed the kid's name in his face until he looked at me, and then he punched me."

You jolt, teeth clenching, and Pidge slams down her mug. She opens her map, but stares above it at Keith, double-checking her information. "He hit you? Keith, I'll drown him –"

"Pidge, close the map." Keith straightens his back, flaring in defense. His masculinity is being tested, and your own flinches from a sympathy pain. "We quit fucking before that. It's not the same. Even if we were still, whatever we were, it isn't the same. We weren't –" Keith struggles with the label and shakes his head. "– whatever."

"In love," Pidge dryly answers, unconvinced.

"I don't know what I mean."

You open and close your balled fists, and your eyes are no longer on them, but staring through thick windows. Balmera Palace's grounds are spread leg before you, but even beneath its sublime tri-sunset, it's suddenly ugly.

Pidge drops her wrist and closes the map, but she's tense. Obviously, she's betrayed, and well, you are too. "Lance doesn't hurt people."

It occurs to you that if Pidge had taken one look at the map, then she would have spotted you. You open the security application on your watch and press your thumb to the screen, going incognito.

"It's not the life he wanted for us," Keith bleakly says. "That's what he told me."

Mouthing a vile Altean swearword, you contemplate hunting down Lance. The reason you don't is because it would throw Keith under the bus and he would blame Pidge until you came clean.

You would rather have Keith fill the gaps for you anyway, so you backtrack and take another route to the library. The private study is empty, and you note the way your footsteps echo, the resonance loud inside the hole Pidge and Keith's conversation left inside you. There has to be more to the story, you hope. If there wasn't, then Keith wouldn't tolerate Lance the way he does.

Tilting back your head in the middle of the room, you yell at the ceiling.

You want to be with Ryou before dinner, not locked up with work and your thoughts. There's nothing you can do about it, so you take a seat. Predictably, you get nothing done except some much needed emotional compartmentalizing.

Keith's present anger makes much more sense now.

You can't fathom what Lance's situation followed by your family life with Allura is doing to him. He's been let down by the two most important people in his life and in such opposing but similar ways.

There's a slight detail in the conversation that's bedeviling you, though. It's the planet housing Lance's bastard child.

Vogriri

It would draw attention to ask around the Red Wing, so you go to the one person who knows more about ally relationships than you do.

Before sitting down to dinner, you pull Allura aside.

Absently, you kiss her temple in warm greeting, and she kisses you back on the cheek, smiling and assuming you're interested in flirting. Her smile ebbs when she notes the seriousness on your face, but you wait for the help to pass with dinner platters before explaining yourself.

"What's our standing with Vogriri?" you ask. "I can't remember, and I don't have time to go to the Red Wing and start rumors because I was digging for information."

Allura starts and leans back, grabbing your biceps. She searches your face. "The elders, Shiro. Vogriri?"

You solemnly nod.

"It was a part of Sendak's last report."

There it is.

"Right," you softly say and look inside the dining room. "There's been a lot on my mind. I forgot."

Lance is there, animatedly posing with Coran and making Ryou laugh, and Hunk and Pidge are already seated and talking over a tablet. Hunk glances up at Lance and smiles.

"There were several planets on that report," she says, returning you to the conversation. "I only remember it because Vogriri is a part of ancient Altean war lore. They're historically Galra allies and were the first to cut from the peace treaty with Altea after Zarkon declared war against my people."

You close your eyes and steel yourself.

Allura takes your chin so you have to look at her. "What is this about?"

"Nothing right now," you murmur and kiss her on the mouth. "We have other things to worry about. Let's eat. I didn't eat much today."

You want to gauge Keith, but he's not at dinner.

In fact, Keith's studiousness prevents you from speaking to him outside training sessions, which aside from lingering looks and gratuitous pinning, are polite and not conversational. It's their public nature, and you two have to be on your best behavior. It isn't until the day Keith is set to be recognized as an IAPP founder and endure his first meeting do you have the chance to speak to him one on one.

"He's preening," Lance jokes from one of the den's couches.

"Does Keith preen now?" you tiredly ask in an attempt to play along. You lift your eyes to him but drop them down to your wringing hands.

"Not a chance. I've tried."

Lance is on his back, but one of his legs is crossed over a raised knee, and his bobbing ankle is annoying you. To be fair, everything about him has started to annoy you.

"He could be stuck. Those suits are hard to get on," Lance adds. "Fashionable condoms, if you will."

The signature Red Wing song that's IAPP boots smacking against tile saves you from having to talk to Lance. You lift your stare from your wringing hands.

"Hey," Keith noncommittally says as he turns the corner.

You're struck off fear's pedestal by something entirely unrelated to the IAPP.

"Hey," you answer, but you don't hear yourself.

Keith has cut his hair, but it's more than a trim. It's a pompadour undercut craftily slicked back and gleaming like shined malachite. Unnerved or not, the style change distracts you from your damp hands. To think, you had considered his nape undercut a drastic modification to his ever disheveled shag.

Even though Lance is there, you forget yourself and lean forward in your seat, dumbstruck. Keith swipes his stare over you, but he self-consciously blinks it away.

The neatness has turned Keith's form into something severe, sharp in all the ways a young IAPP politician should be. Even with the endearing fuzzy ears standing at attention, Keith is polished, ready to devour in his black IAPP suit and gold gaze not nearly as soft as its color's namesake. You don't know what to say, but your stomach clenches and brain flashes like a strobe light. He's a bird of prey. He's ready to dive and kill.

Lance looks at you, and you look at Lance, and while a million individual thoughts are rattling your neurons, you are both hyper-aware of your synced opinion.

He's gorgeous, striking, awe-inspiring, and as rare as the mineral in his Marmora blade. To be wholly pedestrian, he's hot. It's not up for discussion. The man is a head-turning force ready to quail the palace.

Lance pushes himself into an upright position. "Did that sentient closet chain your ass down?"

"You look good," you say, hoping it roundhouse kicks Lance's comment. You fight the urge to shove his head into the nearest cushion. For someone so charming, he has always been terrible with Keith.

Keith checks his watch. It's evident he doesn't want the attention on his appearance but on the work at hand. "We have twenty doboshes to get to the Red Wing, Shiro. Where's Allura?"

You rise to your feet. "Already there. She's waiting for us, but I have to grab my tablet from the office. I would have grabbed it before, but I didn't want you to think I went ahead without you."

"You could have messaged me, old man," Keith says, a twinkle in his eye.

"Yeah, well," you stammer, feeling foolish in ways you haven't since you were a teenager.

Lance's gaze hits Keith's boots and climbs upward, stopping at how the tight suit highlights his hard stomach. He keeps his mouth shut for once, and with a wave in Lance's direction, you escort Keith from the den to the study. You realize Keith has never seen your private hovel before.

He curiously watches your hand glide across the door's camouflaged reader. The door slides open and Keith crosses his arms, arching an eyebrow at you and good-naturedly scrutinizing.

"Do I get one?" he asks.

"We'll talk about it."

You make a beeline for your desk and Keith follows, letting the automatic door whizz shut. He presses his back to the wall and closes his eyes. He rubs his arm to pacify his nerves, turning his lips inward.

You grab the tablet and slide it into your bag. "Got it. We can go."

Keith opens his eyes, but he doesn't move. To initiate travel, you return to the door, but Keith grabs your wrist before you can touch its sensor. Not wanting to assume the worst, you drop your hand, freeing yourself from his hold.

"I should have asked this sooner," you apologetically say. "Are you okay?"

"You're not throwing me to the lions, right?" Keith asks, low and intimate. You haven't heard that tone in years. "I don't know if I'm prepared to do this."

You grab his shoulders and bring him a step closer.

"I have no doubt you're going to make all of us look like we don't know how to do our jobs. You were qualified to do this seven years ago, and you're qualified now. The only advice I can give you is to watch Sendak. He has his own agenda, and he's going to push it today."

"Sendak," he repeats with a nod, sucking back a sobering breath.

"Keith, Allura and I have your back. A lot of people wished for this."

Keith scratches behind a flicked back ear. He cautiously grasps onto your wrists and matches your grip's weight, swiping his thumbs along the protruding wrist bones. You're strong enough not to look away but still embarrassed by his sober affection.

"Shiro, I –" Keith starts, the split sentence disappearing in his smoke-filled voice. That crackle. You will always love it. "I have the IAPP's best interests at heart here."

"I never thought you didn't," you assure him.

He shifts his jaw to the side and darts his gaze toward the ceiling as if seeking help from an invisible force. When it answers, Keith reaches up, and you think to step back when his hand cups the back of your neck, but you don't.

"Keith," you stiffly warn, fighting the urge to hold him. "No."

"I'm an idiot," he confesses. It's old malice. It's uncertainty and his self-esteem glowing in the ashes.

"You're not, but we agreed we weren't going to make this a problem."

Keith clears his throat, not stopping. "I keep thinking about us. It's not normal."

"We're adjusting," you promise. "We've never been around each other like this."

"Do you still love me, Shiro?"

Oh, Christ.

Keith projects the words like a missile, but he doesn't let you answer.

He pulls your mouth onto his, opening cracked lips and seeking you out. You're in shock, but you thaw into the kiss too fast, instantly pouring down his throat with a gratuitous moan he then whimpers for. His fingers abandon your wrists and hold your waist instead, and hating yourself, you slide your palms up and down his ribcage, letting one hand smooth over his ass.

Keith steps closer, pressing his chest to yours. He deepens the kiss until it's mostly tongue on tongue, and you can't will yourself to stop. If given the chance you'll finger him again, open him up and fuck him.

To think, Keith tried to act like he cared about those twenty doboshes.

"Shiro," he mutters, and you dig your nails into his suit, inching toward the zipper.

"Keith, no."

He breaks the kiss and unexpectedly grits his teeth, pulling himself from your hold. You mindlessly slide your palm over your swollen mouth and peer past his head, catching your breath.

"We should go," Keith says, and while it's posed as a suggestion, you can taste the order.

"We're going," you reply, curt and pretending he didn't kiss you. Pretending is the only way you'll survive the meeting, but your whole body is telling you it felt incredible. Keith is raw endorphins.

Not talking, Keith and you walk into the Red Wing that's alive with newfound energy. All eyes are on you and Keith, but mostly Keith. He will be a new constant. He will be another person to answer to.

Your long strides sync as you climb the stairs.

The meeting is being held in a wide room occupied by a massive circular table meant to seat hundreds. It's white from floor to ceiling, but each chair's back is slated with glowing blue crystal.

Keith stops outside the door, shoulders righted but eyes misted over. You know it's bold after the kiss, but you grab the back of his neck and tenderly squeeze. He inhales, shudders and then clears his throat.

"You'll be great."

Keith reaches behind his head and swipes his fingers along your knuckles. You simultaneously lower your hands and Keith nods, arching an eyebrow and hardening his heart to all potential mistakes.

"Let's go," you say and step in front of the facial recognition scanner.

You comfort yourself with your confidence in Keith, but that is your first mistake.

Allura, Keith and you head the table even though it's round to avoid rank display. Allura is to your left while Keith is seated to your right, and it's your arm closest to Keith that is frigidly settled on your lap. In the center of the table is an imposing holographic map. It spins in the darkened room, casting shadows and marked with glowing red dots meant to represent the growing Galra sympathizers skirting the edge of the universe.

Sendak is standing with a remote in hand, his sized down robotic arm folded across his chest. Keith is narrowed in on him, processing Sendak's opinions with an arched eyebrow and face cradled in the L-shape of his thumb and forefinger. He's not impressed, but he's also not incensed by Sendak's war preoccupation.

"The IAPP must be vigilant about this quiet rebellion. We have collected the universe's elite soldiers and trained them. It would take one fleet to eliminate seventy percent of these bases."

His voice booms across the room, imposing on its own but amplified by the hidden microphone in his seat.

"Eliminate," Allura emphasizes. She's cold to Sendak and has been since the moment he pledged allegiance to Voltron. As many do, she views him as an opportunist, not a loyalist. "By eliminate, you mean kill."

Sendak doesn't bat an eye. "Yes, Your Highness."

You shift forward in your chair and Keith mimics your movement, placing his elbows on the table and folding his hands. He presses his mouth to his fingers and turns his gaze to the table, pondering.

"What message does that send?" you ask. "We kill those who disagree with us? Did we learn nothing from the Galra regime's methods? We should attempt to make contact."

Keith sighs and sits up straight, not looking at you.

"That's not what he's saying," he says before Sendak can reply to you. "What Sendak is doing, whether he realizes it or not, is preventing a death parade in our airspace."

Sendak is as startled by Keith's willingness to agree with him as you are, but he hums, a corner of his mouth creeping up. It's the first time he's had an IAPP founder in his corner, and he knows how it looks.

_Fuck._

"Keith _,_ elaborate," you insist, terse.

Keith clears his throat. Without so much as a polite warning, he stands, stepping onto his chair and gracefully heaving himself onto the table. Beside you, Allura groans beneath her breath, but she withholds her dismay and keeps her eyes on Keith who is striding to the map. Arms clasped behind his back, his eyes are no longer on Sendak but the map he only glimpsed at before training himself on his thoughts.

Once in reach, he lifts his hands to the hologram and turns it toward the most concentrated cluster of red dots. His next words are critical, but still aloof enough to be insulting.

"You're too focused on the moral high ground to see where we're at risk. These bases don't exist by chance. They're not inspired communities who feel bad for their dead Prince Lotor or dictatorship. What we're looking at are the Galra Empire's demilitarized zones on Galra ally planets. Years ago, Lance and I scouted two that were brought to our attention by an informant. They weren't demilitarized."

He pauses to let the translators do their work and the audience murmur.

Keith clears his throat. "After we explored these bases, it was apparent the only reason the Galra labeled them as demilitarized in their databases with no conflicting information was to conceal their military technology if conquered. They're essentially weapon vaults."

Your stomach drops. "Was there a reason these weren't brought to our attention before now? Either by an ex-commander from the Galra Empire or yourself?"

"I originally assumed Voltron killed all of those who knew, especially because the ones I saw looked like ruins, but what I now believe happened is anyone who was loyal enough to have access to information about these bases fled to begin a rebellion against the IAPP." Keith says it as if it's as casual as a breeze, a well-known afterthought. "We should consider interviewing our Galra defectors again, but I doubt even our most renown turncoats like Sendak knew they existed."

"I did not," Sendak answers, cool and certain.

"The locations are the least surprising detail," Keith adds, still ignoring the second part of your question. Why didn't he tell the IAPP what he knew? "From what I've seen here, I can already tell you we're looking at planets that were devoted to the Galra cause long before Zarkon destroyed Altea."

Keith apparently never forgot his history lessons with Kolivan.

"There are highly militarized Galra sympathizers conspiring against the IAPP," Allura wearily says, explaining it to the room. Again, translators murmur beneath their breaths and belated grumbles and gasps fill the room. "That is what Keith is implying. Obviously, we don't know for sure."

Kolivan stands and Keith flits his stare to the Marmora leader.

"It was irresponsible to keep this information to yourself. We have been collecting intel on the Galra for centuries and never came across demilitarized bases."

Keith bristles, but it's so subtle you're certain you're the only know who can see it. "There are several reasons I wanted to go to the Marmora base, Kolivan."

An issue with Keith that has waxed and waned is his inability to decide where he places his heart. While you're indebted to the Marmora and firmly consider them a part of the Voltron team, you're aware they will always exist as an independent entity with an origin story that profoundly predates the IAPP. The IAPP is so new in contrast you can't help but wonder if they consider it an indefinite pet project.

Allura cuts in. "Keith, you're the only one who has any concept of what we're dealing with. Tell us what you're thinking."

Keith answers, clipped. "We annihilate them –"

"Keith," you snap, barking his name.

It's not because you want to disengage his idea. It's because Lance's child is on one of those planets. From Keith's conversation with Pidge, you're aware he isn't bent on revenge. He doesn't know, and even if he realizes what he's doing after this meeting, it's a difficult initiative to extricate.

Keith doesn't acknowledge you, shocking the room with his audacity.

"– and let them know we have no tolerance for those who those who endorse totalitarianism."

Keith waves a hand, and out of thin air, a clean hologram slate appears. Sendak tosses him a stylus, and after he catches it, Keith begins to write in Altean.

"The Green Wing will need to send out specialized pilots to scan the planets. They're likely harboring super weapons, but whether or not these weapons exist, we still have to smoke out bases. Once we do that, the rebels will alert other bases and send out fighters. We take Sendak's fleets and overpower theirs, but we'll have to stay on guard. We need to make sure the Paladins of Voltron are on alert."

It means involving Lance in his child's death.

You slide your bionic hand through your hair and quell the panic, masking it as general exasperation. You think about your son and become nauseous.

Allura narrows her eyes and echoes him. "Paladins of Voltron."

"The lions should have never been stowed, to begin with. The time it's going to take to train and become a cohesive unit that can pilot Voltron again is time spent away from the IAPP."

Stowing the lions was both your idea.

You draw back your shoulders. "We stowed them to minimize quintessence exposure. It was a statement. One you authorized."

Not to mention, no one was exactly keen on piloting the lions after Keith lost his leg.

"You're right, but I changed my mind. The past paladins were able to pilot without long-term consequence –"

Allura plants her palms on the table and leans forward. "We have to exist as examples, Keith. The quintessence dealing is out of hand. You know this. You've been tracking the dealers for years. We can't validate depending on it even on a military level. All of us will look like hypocrites, and we cannot –"

"With all due respect, Allura, I exist to save people's lives."

"That is some nerve, Keith," she mutters, eyes sharpening. "No one will agree to this. The time it will take to authorize the lion's utilization makes this plan impossible."

Keith speaks like a falling ax. "We'll see."

There's a lot to learn about the IAPP's red tape, but Keith is smarter than he acts. You wonder if he's found a way around authorization. The one way you know is a bold move, but you wouldn't put much past him at this point, not with your lips still tingling and tongue already missing his.

Keith crosses his arms and stares at his bulleted plan. He begins to draw on the map instead, connecting bases together and deducing patterns. He finds three and circles them, but he doesn't stop there. Numbers appear between planets, and you want to be beside him, sorting through the formulas and discussing.

"These bases are likely connected and work together like a machine. They're too close for it to be sensible otherwise. We'll have to keep that in mind when or if we devise tactics."

Allura clenches a fist, and you hear her knuckles pop. "By doing this, the IAPP will look like it's declaring war."

Keith turns to face her. His hands remain at his sides, posture perfect. "Our people's lives or your false ideations of peacetimes, Your Highness. That's the choice we're making today."

You wonder if Allura already regrets him.

Keith strides away from the map and tosses Sendak his stylus. "Good work, Commander Sendak. Stay persistent. It'll get you far while I'm here."

Sendak flashes his teeth. "I am much obliged, Commander Keith."

"We'll reconvene on this at a later date when details are sorted," you announce, desperately needing air. Thoughts about piloting a lion and welcoming quintessence dependency make your skin prick. It's not from fear. It's anticipation, but that's a secondary issue. Lance and Lance's child are the true priority. You have to do something before there's bloodshed. This could easily ruin the paladins forever. "Those who have access, clear your schedules and meet at the war table tomorrow evening."

"War table," Allura whispers in disdain. She types on her tablet, making notes. When chair legs scraping across the floor drown the room, she shifts closer. "Shiro, did you know he was going to do this?"

You add the next day's meeting to your schedule, stalling on Allura's question. The number of meetings you have to move kicks your heart to the ceiling.

"If only," you whisper.

Keith returns to his seat and crosses his ankles, reading his watch. You stare at him in disbelief. If everything checks out, then the seeds he planted alongside Sendak are important, but at what cost? By the time Lance willingly discloses his secret, you will be back inside a lion, shouting orders with Keith.

Your fingers pause above your tablet's schedule as a dark thought casts a shadow.

If Lance already knew Vogriri was involved with Galra sympathizers, then it would explain why he was determined to remove himself from the unborn child's life.

You lower your mouth into your palm and raise your eyes to the spinning map, noting Vogriri isn't on the isolated examples Sendak presented. There are too many implications to sort in the bustling room. Its energy is droning and people are lingering to chat. The moment they exit they can't open their mouths.

Alas, the rule hardly matters. By dinner, there'll be whispers about war breezing through the palace like ghosts. You dread the backlash. You dread Allura's frustration with Keith.

Speaking of Keith, you clear your throat and address him with a side glance, making sure he can see you're disappointed. "Your first day and you instigate war."

He tilts his head toward you and stares at your mouth. His eyes linger too long, but he flicks his gaze upward. His stare is colder than Callisto. "You wanted me to lead? This is how I lead."

As fleeting as it is, Keith harnesses the Boomerang Nebula and pitches it forward. The single Kelvin star system whips around you, but its glacial dust returns to Keith's palm.

Allura leans over your lap. She reaches out and whacks Keith's thigh. Keith sucks back a breath and mouths 'ow,' but Allura doesn't give him a chance to complain.

"It might have worked for the others, but the dapper hairstyle didn't distract me from what you did. We will dissect why you cannot simply parade bloodthirst through the Red Wing."

"It's named after me," he reminds her.

This suddenly makes its motto ironic, and you sigh.

She grabs your ear as if it's  _your_  fault. "He's been around Lance far too long. I'm not a fan."

You grunt and gesture at Keith who looks ahead, a corner of his mouth hooked high. Your nose burns hot, and you're embarrassed the reprimanding is public. "Why are you grabbing my ear?"

"Because you were the one who told me he was ready."

"It was up to Shiro," Keith vacantly acknowledges. "Forever my keeper."

"He was. He _is_." You grab her wrist but don't tear it down. "What makes the IAPP strong is our differentiating angles. We can't expect monolithic thinking."

Allura lets you go with an 'I'm aware,' but affectionately shoves you toward Keith. You catch yourself on his upper thigh, and Keith jolts, uncrossing his ankles. Allura shrewdly looks you over, and your heart only palpitates when she turns the look onto Keith. To break the shock, Keith snatches his water glass and drinks, loudly swallowing. You yank back your hand, and Keith unexpectedly chokes on his final sip.

"Back at it again," Allura dismissively says and stands. She smooths the folds in her dress and tucks her tablet under her arm. "I forgot you two never see the wrong in one another."

You inhale and Keith laughs as speak. "I wouldn't go that far."

Allura ignores that. "Shiro, I have an appointment with Ryou, but you should try to rest during your break. I haven't seen you this stressed looking in years."

"I'll try," you say, but you know better.

When she leaves, Keith stands like a released spring. He runs his hands through his hair, feeling for phantom locks and ending up emptyhanded. Clearly frightened by Allura's proximity to you touching him, he says nothing and refuses to look at you again. His eyes settle on Sendak instead who's talking with another Galra defector. He clears his throat, mumbles 'excuse me' and seeks out the fellow commander.

Sendak brusquely snaps his conversation in two to shake hands with Keith. It's the same way you first shook hands with Kolivan, but the arm grab is accompanied by two impish smiles. No matter how much time has passed, you still find Sendak difficult to digest. Between that and Keith's magnetism toward him, you have to leave the room, avoiding conversation with the excuse that you're late for something.

You don't make it far.

"How'd it go?"

Lance is standing at the end of the Red Wing's stairs, smiling at you with all his boyish charm beneath his facial hair and dense muscles. As a father, you want to warn him, but even if you trusted him, you can't.

"As well as I'd hoped."

"That bastard," Lance tenderly says.

Before you can disappear, Lance insists on celebrating Keith's first day. Hunk and Pidge are reluctant when later asked in the group chat, but after Lance compliments Hunk's beard, Hunk decides he can't say no. It's for Keith, Hunk promises. Keith deserves the recognition, he says.

You never saw Hunk as a weak man, but you know better than to judge another on his interpersonal vices. Pidge concedes only when she sees Keith's hair, claiming that's the true victory.

"I can't," Allura answers when you ask her to come along. It's after dinner, and she's dressed in pajamas, seated on your bed. "I'm doing damage control after Keith's spectacle."

You wrinkle your nose but sand down your features before she sees. "There's nothing to control until we meet tomorrow."

"I'm vaguely reassuring people," she clarifies. You change in front of her, but she hasn't looked up from her tablet since you stepped into the bedroom. "Keith doesn't understand his decorum is more powerful than both diplomacy and Voltron combined."

"He'll catch on," you reassure her and tug a shirt over your head.

"But only after making a point to be as unorthodox as possible."

You exhale with a smile, but it's an understanding one. After all, you're training Keith. He's linear to a fault. "Is it unorthodox if he's getting straight to the point?"

"He is the most eccentric Galra I have ever met," she assures you. "Kiss Ryou before you go."

Uninterested in the ceaseless Keith discussion, you pretend you didn't hear the Galra comment and step into black boots. "I planned to."

In the Blue Wing's entry point, the others are waiting. You kiss Allura goodbye and meet the others there, making a mental note not to drink too much. Your friends are discussing avoiding the paparazzi when you slide into their circle beside Keith. He glances at you but realigns himself onto Pidge.

"We only have three bikes with the invisibility software installed," Pidge says. "Lance's and Keith's are in the shop because they needed to fist every amenity they could into their bikes' assholes."

Lance blows a raspberry, and Keith guiltlessly lifts and drops his shoulders. They exchange short sideways stares and high five one another.

"Keith can ride with me," you offer.

That puts Lance with Hunk and Pidge solo. Assuming the others can connect the dots, you walk toward the Blue Wing's doors. They creak open for you.

Keith follows you with a determined stride. "I'm driving."

"Not on your life, Commander Keith."

"Emperor Takashi, I insist." He says it like a dare, and you can hear his smile.

"I'm driving," Lance says to Hunk.

Hunk puffs out a breath, relieved. "I'm not gonna complain."

In the garage, Keith and you wrestle over the crystal key. His hand swipes over yours as you grab it from its hook, and he shoves your back against the wall. You lift it out of reach, and he scrapes nails down your wrists, the razor edges drawing red lines. He almost snatches it, but you toss the key through time itself, making it momentarily disappear. It reappears in your other hand with a purple blip.

"Are you trying to fight dirty?" you ask, stoic with Keith's chest pressed to yours. You spin the keychain around your index finger.

Keith grinds his teeth to conceal a laugh. "We're celebrating my accomplishments tonight. Let me drive the bike, Shiro. Call it a present."

"Someone has to be above spoiling you for doing your job."

He swipes for the key again. "Says the worst offender."

You win by height, infuriating Keith in a way you haven't since Galaxy Garrison. Still laughing when you take a seat on the bike, Keith inelegantly plops himself behind you. You pass him the extra pair of bike lenses, and he drops them onto his nose. Keith's arms are crossed until you kick the stand out from beneath the vehicle's weight, and he grabs your shoulder to steady himself. After, he doesn't let go.

Keith's voice enters your head when you're barreling through the back streets, leading the way with Pidge and Lance elegantly trailing behind.

_I miss my hoverbike._

_Our bikes were modeled after the one you had. There were obviously a few modifications here and there, but I think I did a decent job._

He extends an arm forward, draping it over your shoulder and presses his chest to your back. He prods the map in front of you, but the moment he grabs your hip you recognize it's a masked embrace.

_They're my favorite part about this place so far._

_Did you know your bike is in storage on Earth? Matt moved it for me during a visit. He said it's a rust bucket, but it's salvageable._

Keith stops dragging a finger along the map and closes his hand into a loose fist. He turns his face toward yours, pressing his nose against your temple, and you fight the urge to kiss him. You reach for his face and cradle the side of his head, and it's like you're finally understanding the universe's entirety.

Earlier, Keith asked you if you still loved him, but suddenly, you can't look the answer in the eye. He interrupts the fear with a thoughtful tone.

_We should salvage it together._

You're on your best behavior that night. Keith keeps his distance, and you have two drinks. This shouldn't be an accomplishment, but the entire time you think about Keith's kiss. It haunts you through group conversations and tracks you during the eventual drive home, but Keith doesn't enter your mind again. He barely looks your way yet you still feel him reverberating through you, warm and aching.

Everyone is able to climb the stairs to individual bedrooms, which means no one has to spend the night together. Keith is the last to head up his looping staircase, but he stops before opening the door. He leans over the landing's sleek railing instead and looks down at you with a bored expression. You cross your arms, staring up at him, and shoot him an inquisitive eyebrow arch.

"Going to bed?" he asks, more intoxicated than he appears.

"Are you?" you counter, matching his tone's implied apathy.

Keith parts his lips, but his expression darkens in interest, suddenly making you simmer. "It's the responsible thing to do, but being responsible never gets me much."

"Food for thought," you amicably murmur and fight the mental image of him on all fours, face down against the mattress and getting fucked out. His gaze implies he'd let you if you climbed the stairs for him. "Well, when you do sleep, sleep well. Take pain medication and try to make it to breakfast."

He chuckles and shakes his head at the rejection, shoving himself back. "Goodnight, Shiro."

A shudder rakes its fingers down your back, and at your weakest, you're a hound for Keith's scent. He wants you, and it's not surprising his denunciation from the night you fingered him was a protective wall. It was for you, too, but you will fight admitting that for as long as possible. You hope you'll convince yourself it's true, but it's not like that tactic has ever worked.

Keith's door slides shut behind him, and you wander the dark hallways to your bedroom where your sleeping wife waits. You take your own advice and pound water and pills to stave off a hangover, and you strip before collapsing beside Allura. She's delicate in this state, unguarded, but you don't touch her to remind yourself you want her. Rather, you respect her by not going near her, hands stuffed beneath your head and your eyes on the ceiling. They glaze and you lose consciousness, sleeping like a log.

In the morning, you decide it should be noted Allura's delicate state could very well be in your head. Over the years, she has sharpened every utensil in her drawer and even turned the spoons into weapons.

"Embarrassing, all of you!"

It's not the first time you've heard that sentence applied to you and your fellow paladins.

You're teeming with early onset Midlife Crisis when Allura rolls into breakfast, reluctantly holding a tablet face first as if it were a leaking trash bag and not a piece of brilliant technology. She careens behind Keith's chair and smacks it down between him and his bowl, crossing her arms and staring a hole through his head.

Keith drags his spoon from between tight lips and crunches. Wholly disinterested, he obediently leans forward and chews, eyes skimming a single line of text. He leans to the side and takes another bite.

"Estranged Paladins Reunite, Setting the New Standard for Alforis' Social Revelry," he recites through food. Keith isn't having it, and you wish you had his self-preservation. More than likely, though, he doesn't truly understand the ramifications behind Alforis headlines.

It's something he'll have to learn on his own, unfortunately. He wouldn't listen to you if you tried.

"That is a hell of a headline," Lance mutters, feigning gravity because Allura is a personified knife to the balls.

"Keep reading," Allura urges.

You think to give her consoling eye contact, but something tells you you're under fire here, too. You don't want the rug pulled out from beneath you in front of everyone, so you wait for the hammer.

Keith clears his throat with a condescending ' _ahem_ ' and reads. "Escorting a new era into Alforis' social limelight are party boy paladins, Lance and Keith. A known item throughout the –"

He tries not to, but he glances at you and back to his reading. Keith attempts to cover his tracks, tense, but it's too late. You heard that. "What the hell is an  _item_  to these people?"

"People who fuck," Lance answers, dull and miffed by Keith's denial.

"That is what concerns you here?" Allura criticizes. "Did everyone here forget how to look at the big picture? Do humans stop doing that after twenty-years-old?"

Keith leans closer to the article, no longer willing to share the information so shamelessly. He mouths sentences, sneering at gaudy word choices, but all at once stops. The blood oozes from his face and his wry smile falls into a flat line that might as well have been his heart.

You arch an eyebrow, impatient with suspense.

"You have to be fucking kidding me," Keith lowly says to the tablet, waiting for it to give him one more reason to Frisbee it straight to hell. He scrolls up, looking for a name. "Who wrote this? Lance and I did not –"

To save yourself the mental image, you tune out. You hear your name once, but you decide not to engage with that either. Denial is the warm gun you use to shoot yourself in the foot, but you don't care.

"Sure, honeypot," Lance mutters above his coffee mug.

He opens his hand for the tablet, and reluctantly, Keith deposits it into his palm. His eyes fall onto the picture editor's pitiless decision, and Lance spits his drink back into his cup like a waterfall. He shouts laughter across the room, startling your son from his intent cereal grabbing. "Keith! Keith, you look great. This is perfection, actually. You'd never guess you're almost thirty years old doing  _that_  on  _him_."

"Social standards are different here," you mumble, not appreciating the age jab. "For many species, we're larvae. It's a point of contention you need to keep in mind while working for the IAPP."

You're not sure anyone hears.

"More like this is condemning," Pidge continues. She has one hand ceaselessly typing on her tablet and the other clenching a spoon. She's more attached to her meal than her work, but the labs will never know.

"This is defamation," Keith mumbles. He's waiting for solidarity no one will give him if it's the difference in being able to make fun of him for a week.

"Is it libel if you actually did it?" Hunk asks, faking dispassion. "Because I think the term you're looking for here is honest character assessment. Journalists are the IAPP's watchdogs."

Keith shoots him a squint. "Didn't you hear Shiro, Hunk? Social standards are different here. Maybe the journalists should focus on actual journalism and –"

Ah – so someone  _was_ paying attention.

"Are you implying you want to control public media?" Hunk challenges.

Keith arches an eyebrow and notes that's exactly what he was implying. He throws in the towel. "No."

"Shiro looks awesome," Lance observes. He's taking heat off Keith. You ask God to help you not roll your eyes, and he doesn't listen. Lance leans in Ryou's direction who carefully watches him, smiling. "You have a lot to live up to, little man. Daddy and gatito have moves."

"God," Hunk murmurs when Lance says 'daddy,' and you wonder if it's too late to rescind Lance's invitation to the IAPP. That or eat shit and find a way to temporarily die.

A coma, you realize. You mean a coma.

Ryou pats Lance's unshaven face and laughs, the twitter bright and songlike. Lance sympathetically nods, pretending his response is a rebuttal one would expect. You slide your eyes to Allura and open your mouth to offer an opinion, but she points at you. You lean back in your chair, clamping your mouth shut.

"I'll deal with you later. As the leader, it's your job to address their behavior and yet you were inebriated and allowing this debauchery to happen while playing on your watch."

Playing on your watch and watching Keith, you recall.

She slams onto an elbow beside Keith and points at him too, narrowing her eyes in a way that is unnervingly similar to Lance's scrutiny. Keith lowers his fork but doesn't look at her, lips pursed.

"I'm here for everyone to have fun and bond," Allura begins, "but this is tacky. I understand, Keith. Your body is taut and pleasant, but that doesn't mean you perform mating rituals in public with strangers –"

"Mating rituals," Keith repeats, seemingly dead inside.

Allura zooms in on the article's picture, making Keith's ass against someone's crotch the entire screen. "Is that not what you're doing in these photos?"

He lifts both hands and yells at the wall, not her. "It's called dancing! Everyone here does it!"

"This is an invitation to saturate your mate's venter with your coagulating squalenite!"

Keith whips around to face you, desperate. "Are we in hell?"

You sip your coffee and say nothing, doing your damndest to maintain your dignity's slender threads. Keith pushes away his bowl and deflates in his chair, humiliated.

"This is fantastic breakfast conversation," Pidge mumbles. "Keith and his unscrambled eggs really gets the appetite going, don't you think?"

Lance snorts, but Allura points at him, and he lifts his hands in surrender, apologizing with a respectful 'your highness.' You pet Ryou's head and keep your eyes cast anywhere but on her.

"If you must act this way, then surround yourselves with those who have as much to lose and won't gossip about your depravity to the public. Things are different now that we're heading the IAPP."

"I'm resigning," Keith says, his spirit gutted.

"No you're not," Allura promises and pours him more coffee. "You have a meeting in five doboshes. Honestly, Keith, if you're looking for mates, then I'll introduce you to several fine IAPP ambassadors."

Keith looks at you again and mouths 'do something.'

You do nothing.

"That's what I call a bystander bully," Lance whispers to Hunk, meaning you.

Aside from the war table meeting, which is nothing more than an argument about whether or not the Green Wing should scan the planets before acquiring more intel on Keith's report, you're bored throughout the ever busy day. This prompts you to plan your trip to the Marmora base with Keith. You forward him the itinerary for next week, but within thirty ticks, he messages you.

 **KEITH:**  If you give me the coordinates, then I can go alone and you can take the day off. No one has to know we're not together.

 **TAKASHI:**  Thoughtful, but Kolivan would skin me.

 **KEITH:**  Whatever. Admit you're a masochist.

 **TAKASHI:**  You know how much I love an open wound. But is that a good day for you? I need to know.

His next reply takes much longer than the others.

 **KEITH:**  Can I pilot your ship?

 **TAKASHI:**  That doesn't answer the question.

 **KEITH:**  It does.

 **TAKASHI:**  You can co-pilot.

 **KEITH:**  I guess it works.

You smile at your watch and shake your head, dropping your wrist. Hunk watches you walk through the den, but he stops you, slinging an arm around your shoulders. You pat his back and match his pace.

"That is one perky look you've got going on," he says and walks you into the dining room. "Shiro, can I ask you an ethically elusive question? I just want to double check something."

"It depends," you answer, being honest and making no promises.

"Is Lance dating Keith on the sly?"

That is the last question you expected, but it's also the least surprising, somehow. You rub your neck and exhale, attempting to calm the angry flutter thoughts about Lance and Keith together give you.

"That's something you should ask Lance," you carefully say, "but I want to say he isn't."

Hunk manages an unbothered 'huh,' and he drops his arm from your shoulders. "That's what I figured, but you never know. Last thing I want to do is cross ugly boundaries."

"Keith has implied otherwise," you say, hating yourself for hoping Hunk can swindle Lance out of the picture when there is no picture in the first place. It's becomes a war to not scream at yourself.

"Right." Hunk plops down at the table and you sit across from him. "Speaking of Keith, you two seem to be buddying up again. Heard about the epic training sessions from someone in the Green Wing the other day. That's cool, man. I'm glad, you know? Before you two were all mano a mano, you were like kindred souls and whatever. The real bosom buddies. Actual brothers in arms."

There is so much in Hunk's description you can only sputter through a polite acknowledgment. "It's easier on everyone to be civil, even ourselves."

He shrugs and thoughtfully smiles. "It feels like home again. That's all I'm saying."

There's business to attend to before the Marmora trip, and Keith does what you did at first and loses himself in it, disappearing into the Red Wing as if it's a portal. Even on the day of the trip itself, you have to track him on your watch and steal him from the study where Ryou is playing under Coran's guidance. Keith obviously isn't there for quality time with the two. It's the map projections he's obsessed with.

You're approaching the open doors when Ryou's startled cry belts from the study. Keith asks Coran if Ryou's okay, and it's followed by Coran's painfully honest response about your toddler.

"He's a bit of a crier, but that's alright. Was one myself, or so my mother always said. I turned out just fine."

"Nothing wrong with crying," Keith agrees.

You halt in the doorway but don't announce yourself. You watch instead.

Ryou waddles toward Keith, reaching for him to pick him up. At first, Keith doesn't notice. Ryou attempts to say Keith's name, and only then does Keith's stare dart to him. Keith shifts back, unsure of himself and Ryou's neediness, but he braces his nerves. He clears his throat, and as if familiar with children, manages a short tutting noise. Keith smiles and kneels down, touching Ryou's nose.

"Did you hurt yourself?"

Ryou nods.

Keith smiles. "Will you live?"

Ryou pathetically shakes his head 'no,' and Keith fights a laugh.

He picks up your son.

Not unlike his father, Ryou is a sensitive child. He presses his forehead against Keith's shoulder and goes quiet, hiccupping. Uncertain if it's an Altean trait, the darkness of necks has always soothed him, hushed him like a dimming light. Most of his early babyhood was spent sleeping on your shoulder with you seated upright in bed. Due to occupational design, you were more hands-on during Ryou's infancy than Allura, which never bothered you. It did, however, upset her during her more stressful nights.

" _All I wanted was our son, and he doesn't even know me, Shiro. My own baby doesn't look to me. I hand him to nurses and his father so I can fight with old men. I wanted to be like my mother. I wanted to make him feel safe."_

" _It'll be easier when he can walk. We'll be able to take him to meetings, and if the IAPP has an issue with it, then we'll remind them who runs the administration."_

" _I know it's ridiculous to ask, but what if he thinks I don't love him?"_

" _Children are perceptive. Someday, he'll understand you saved the universe to keep him safe. We did everything we did to have him."_

Keith looks at Ryou's head, ears flattening against his skull. You want to take your son from his arms if only to save the child from melding into Keith's resentful thinking. Ryou is the culmination of an end.

"Are you going to sleep?" Keith asks Ryou as if speaking to an adult. Ryou shakes his head but doesn't move. "I think you're going to sleep."

"This is surreal," Lance says from behind you.

You look over your shoulder. Again, you're startled by how handsome he's become. When you look back, Keith is meandering around the New Altea map with your son still in his arms, expression severe and brain rotating gears as he contemplates the planet. "Did Keith get some fresh air or something? Do we have a doctor who does lobotomies? Because sign me up. I am ready for the brain blender."

Keith reaches out and spins the map to examine the different hemispheres. He flicks his gaze to Lance who carefully approaches your side. Keith then locks onto you, and you smile.

"Ready to go?" you ask.

Ryou's head perks up when he hears you, but he doesn't squirm out of Keith's arms. He shouts 'Papa,' and you stride forward to greet him. It's as if he never shed a tear.

"He fell," Keith explains, nervous about holding your child. He wasn't half as anxious when he first met Ryou, but you know the past intimacies makes this even more sensitive than before. Keith looks to Ryou. "Do you want to go to him?"

You wonder if parental titles are awkward on Keith's tongue. You suppose it makes sense, but you wonder how he'd feel referring to himself with one.

Ryou shakes his head and you laugh at the rejection, taking it in stride. You lean over, and holding Keith's shoulder for balance, kiss Ryou's forehead.

"Keith and Papa need to go," you explain, and when his bottom lip shakes, you scoop him from Keith's arms and bounce him on your hip until he laughs. Your heart hurts, but you're not sure why. It's likely the same old sentiment. He's the only thing you did right, but you doubt you'll do right by him. "I'm going to be home early. We could read together before mommy gets home. Would you like that?"

Ryou nods, and after a little more bartering, you're able to deposit him into Coran's arms.

Lance nods toward the door. "I'll distract him. I know you two have to jet, but uh, Shiro, I need to talk to you when you get back. Nothing weird, so it can wait."

"Ominous," Keith says, but he smiles, arms crossed and his weight settled on a single foot.

"Can you message me?" you ask, concerned and thinking about Vogriri again. Keith still hasn't mentioned the planet or interpersonal drama surrounding it, and you know you have to do something.

He sheepishly smiles. "I'd kinda prefer to talk about it in person."

You answer seriously, already reading between the lines. "Let's talk tonight."

In the hallway, you ask Keith if he knows what Lance might need, and he frowns. "I never know with Lance these days. We don't talk as much as we used to."

The palace hangar is lively with mechanics and engineers when Keith and you stroll inside, cutting up about Cemlo's recent invitation to an Earth cocktail party. After proper protocol, you board the ship with a customary Altean salute, but Keith's is significantly stiffer than yours, too formal. You elbow him with a knowing smile, and he feigns ignorance, turning on his heel for the cockpit.

He takes his seat, and you lean over his shoulder, inputting the Marmora coordinates. Your free hand firmly holds the back of his neck, thumb sliding along the start of his spine. "Memorize that."

"Yes, sir."

You push his head forward and exhale. "I can never tell if that's sarcasm."

"It is, sir."

"You're impossible," you murmur, taking your seat.

"Always, sir."

Piloting with Keith puts you inside the Garrison's simulators, and the longing is a terrible feeling you wish you could conquer, but it's another fight you refuse to initiate. Long ago, you accepted Earth would never be home again. You are bound to New Altea, not even privy to the occasional outing through the local galaxy unless hunting down rogue Red and Blue Paladins.

"The palace was making me stir crazy," Keith admits. He engages the thrusters, and you double check readings, paying close attention to ship vitals.

You distantly manage commentary, concentrating on the deck in front of you. "You think that's bad? Try doing it for almost seven years."

Keith stops short, lowering his working hand onto his lap. He blinks, licks his lip and inhales. "How often do you leave New Altea, Shiro?"

"Not enough, but don't worry about it."

In the air, you check the ETA and then stand. Keith hasn't said a word since realizing how little you engage with the outside universe, and you can't stand the weighted silence. "It's only an hour out, but I need coffee. I don't know what else is stocked in the back if you want something else."

"I can check myself," Keith says, putting the ship on autopilot.

He trails after you into the modest ship kitchen that's only been used twice. You make your coffee, and Keith fishes through the fridge for a drink. He finds something similar to tea, but there are glowing green cubes floating along the bottom. It reminds you of an incandescent aloe drink, and he opens the bottle with a shrug, pressing his hip against the counter as he takes his first sip.

"This is gross," he admits, but he doesn't stop drinking it. The castle ship's green goo steeled him along with the other paladins to disgusting but nourishing food.

You deposit grounds into the coffee machine. "It's good for you."

"That explains it then."

Keith watches you, but he tilts his head at the coffee pot. He doesn't say anything about whatever observation he made, but he does step closer.

You turn on the maker and also lean against the counter. "It's pretty primitive, but I think this is the one science humans will always have over other planets."

"Coffee, beer and five-dollar pizzas," Keith says, almost like discussing a dream. "That and sometimes I miss canned tuna and Velveeta. There really are some things about Earth that are pretty singular."

"Not just food. References, too. I once tried to explain what a sitting duck was to Allura after saying it in a meeting, and we ended up arguing over a duck's intellect. It's nice having you and the others around. I don't feel like I'm always speaking in tongues or making the wrong social cues." You scratch your temple, looking down as you hesitantly breach a topic you've only discussed with Matt. "Even being affectionate with Allura doesn't bode well for the whole human thing I can't seem to escape from."

Keith forgets his drink, interest piqued. He shifts his weight. "What do you mean?"

You watch the coffee's automatic drip, not sure how much you want to disclose when Keith immolates all your other desires. "It's loaded and probably too personal, but Altean romance is different from human romance. Even sexual arousal is spurred on by different things, which is fine. We have a child even after several losses, and marriage is mostly compromise anyway. It's mostly anthropologically interesting."

"Do you –" Keith hesitates, a concerned wrinkle lining his forehead. "I shouldn't ask. This is crossing a line, but does it feel good for you? Whatever Alteans do, I mean."

He knows the answer, but you do have boundaries.

"We can't talk about that. That's Allura's very private business, too."

"I figured," he swiftly murmurs and clears his throat, mouthing a whistle when he thinks you're not looking. "Sorry, Shiro. That wasn't me being an opportunist. We were friends once, so I – a habit –"

"It's fine," you promise, being sincere.

By saying 'opportunist' Keith is opening the door for a discussion about you two. Whether or not he's consciously doing so is up in the air, but when you grab your coffee cup from its magnetic hook, you want to stride through his door and sit. You need to understand Keith's intentions and your limits.

The limits should be emotional and physical eradication between you both, but only one of those has proven to be possible.

"What do you want from me?" you ask, posing it as gently as possible. You've decided that if you're kind and not condemning, then he might speak freely. It's only after the question do you look at him.

Keith pensively looks away in response and scrapes his thumbnail along the bottle's label. His eyes dart across the floor, but he shakes his head. "I don't know."

"Allura is our friend," you say, flogging yourself with every syllable.

He bears his teeth. "You act like I haven't thought about it."

"I can't tell if you have because we don't talk, and I said we'd talk this time. Friends or more or whatever, if you're going to be here, then we have to communicate."

You don't expect much, so you're not surprised when Keith has a single sentence answer.

"I miss you."

It's a mutual thought. Terribly mutual to the point the craving is distorting your priorities and slaughtering your ambition. You've attempted to live like a monk, savoring every bout of loneliness like it will bring you closer to a god you stopped believing in the second the Galra sliced off your arm.

You told Keith you're a martyr. You told him his heart couldn't take it, but maybe yours can't either. The situation is posed like dangerous fault lines on Earth. Eventually, there will be earthquakes.

You two will never last.

Keith's brain is spinning. You see it in his glassy eyes, and he's in agony before you can reach out and pause the wheel. Keith can no longer grip his hair as an anchor, so he reaches behind his head and presses his fingers between his shoulder blades, shaking his head when tears accumulate. He clenches his teeth, and you set down your cup, ready to lower your stare so you're on his level.

"I've missed you every single waking moment since I left, and I'm going to die regretting the decisions I pushed on us before the IAPP. We were almost married. You weren't my morality crisis. I wasn't with you because I didn't want to die alone. Every time I sat down in a lion, every time I killed someone, I told myself it was so that we could have our time together and grieve together and recover together."

He chews the scar on his lip, steadying his breathing. You know he wants the confession to fix things, but everything here is unfixable.

You say your next words, but your voice breaks, gushing like a knife wound. "There are some things we have to live with, Keith."

"I wasn't even twenty-three!" he suddenly screams and slams the bottle into the sink. There is rampant grief in that response. He's coming to terms with the life Voltron stole from him the same way you did when he left with Lance. "I was a teenager, and then it's like I woke up from a fever dream being heralded as a god with these set expectations where I would never matter as much as the work we still had to do. You weren't there when I picked you over Black, but I picked you, and I wish I had done it again."

"Keith, I –"

"I killed Lotor for you!" He's trembling, chest heaving and snot running over his mouth. Keith is doing his best to regain himself, and you know the desperate clamoring, but there's no chance at this point. "It started with you, remember? It started with you, and I fought on the belief that it would end with you."

"It's been years."

"Years of  _what_? Look at you! Look at your life! Look at my life! Can we even call them that? Did we even get a chance to have lives? You have Ryou, and I'm happy you have Ryou and that you're comfortable being a father, but do you love Allura? Tell me you love her because I love –"

"I love you."

The words stumble out, and you shake your head, eyes closed. Tears splash down your face, and you clear your throat, ready to gnash teeth and borrow Keith's anger. There is no way to abridge what traipsing the universe for love does to two people, and as much as you want to consolidate your morals and love for Keith, you cannot under the relationship's weight.

You cross a line, and behind you, someone builds a wall along it.

"I love you," you repeat, words crumbling, world crumbling. "I love you."


	7. Chapter 7

He told you he's a martyr. He told you it was your heart that couldn't take it, but neither can his.

This isn't debatable. It's not theory. It's scientific fact.

It radiates from Shiro's person like the night before the Chernobyl incident. He's the prologue to a nuclear disaster, but you refuse to watch him implode. If Shiro crashes, then he will wipe out everyone he loves. Even if the deaths aren't instantaneous, the poison will leave them terminally ill.

Shiro asked you what you want from him, and you don't know. It's not like you two can last.

Reaching behind your head, you dig your nails into the skin between your shoulder blades and defiantly shake your head.

"I've missed you every single waking moment since I left, and I'm going to die regretting the decisions I pushed on us before the IAPP. We were almost married. You weren't my mortality crisis. I wasn't with you because I didn't want to die alone. Every time I sat down in a lion, every time I killed someone, I told myself it was so we could have our time together and grieve together and recover together."

You hate the strain in your words, how emotion muddles their impact.

Shiro's answer is a knife wound. "We have to live with our life choices, Keith."

Oh, fuck that.

"I wasn't even twenty-three!" You slam the bottle into the sink and glass explodes. Voltron took everything from you, and for once, you want something. The universe should only be allowed to be so taxing, and you're mandating a fucking cap. "I was a teenager, and then it's like I woke up from a fever dream as a god with expectations where I would never matter as much as the work we had left. You weren't there when I picked you over Black, Shiro, but I picked you over the universe, and I wish I had done it again."

"Keith, I –"

There has to be a way to make him understand that what you did years ago wasn't something he had the right to disown you over. You used him as your model, and goddamn him for hating you for it.

"I killed Lotor to save you, not end a war!" Your chest heaves. Snot runs over your mouth, and you swipe it up with the back of your hands. Your heart thuds faster, but you're suddenly so cold. "It started with you, remember? It started with you, and I fought on the belief that it would end with you."

You loved him so honestly. Every word he spoke you exonerated, and he once listened to you with equal regard. Back before you obliterated his faith in your feelings.

"It's been years," he vacantly says.

"Years of what? Look at you! Look at your life! Look at my life! Can we even call them that? Did we even get a chance to have lives? You have Ryou, and I'm happy you have Ryou and that you're comfortable being a father, but do you love Allura? Tell me you love her because I love –"

"I love you."

Those three words defuse you.

Shiro squeezes his eyes shut and reluctant tears streak toward his neck. They're faster than light, quick to become nothing in the shadows along his throat, but they appear again and again like a spontaneous meteor shower. You want to reach and dry them as an apology, but he's feral in his feelings.

He clears his throat.

"I love you," Shiro repeats. He makes it sound like he's stripping his own skin. "I love you."

The only time you've trembled as hard was when you first saw your residual limb, but you shunt the disbelief. You replace it with liberation that comes from reconciled feelings. It's temporary relief, of course, but you'll take it considering how you're closing in on a heart attack.

Shiro directs his eyes to the floor. As if realizing something, the muscles in his face relax. You take that cue and lift a hand. Shiro clears his throat and shakes his head when it approaches him, but you catch his cheek and hold. Swiping your thumb through a tear stain, he leans in.

"Shiro, I didn't come back here to do this."

He clears the congestion from his throat. "It's not your style."

Shiro's cool fingers slip into your hair and grip. He guides you to him, and he curls his flesh fingers into your waist. Like old times, you capture the sides of his neck and close the space with a scraping step.

Shiro lowers his face, but rather than kiss you, presses his forehead to yours and holds.

You can't remember the last time someone held you for the sake of holding you. The anger from before lapses into calm waters, and it laps your shores, so very fucking tired.

"I love you, Shiro," you whisper. "I've been so goddamn lonely without you."

"I wanted you to leave Voltron happy," he says. "Whether or not we were together, it was always my intention to make sure you were somewhere you felt you belonged. Instead, you ended up floating through space for six years and still haven't laid down roots."

"I'm laying them down now. The IAPP is my responsibility, and I'm not going to keep letting you and the others fight alone. This is what I wanted. This is my dream, too."

"Don't tell me that because you love me."

"Since when have I ever put loving you first?"

You want to kiss him, mouth heavy on his and tongue stroking its insides until you sate every craving from the past six years. If you knew the other Galra wouldn't smell lust clinging to your skin, then you would. You know Shiro would fuck you, but you're inconvenienced by your body's inability to be discrete.

Shiro continues to hold you, and after a ruminative hum, kisses you. It's not hungry like your drunken encounters, and it's not resistant in the way he was in his sanctuary. The kiss is concise and firm with familiarity better suited for two people who've loved one another for a decade. Others have kissed you since. Others have fucked you well even, but that kiss farms a lifeless gorge inside you.

You're really pathetic.

There's an amnesic quality to kissing him. You push Shiro's lower back against the counter, and he splits your lips with his tongue. A blindfold is wrapped around your head, and you can't see the reasons you hated him.

Actually, pathetic is putting it nicely. You're desperate. On your knees, weak and unwilling to stand your ground in the face of wrong.

As a hero, you're a farce. Protecting the universe was the goal, but you reasoned that preserving life and autonomy meant preserving those your team loved. Your team had families, but you had Shiro.

This idea was later trained from your dialogue. Kolivan taught you there is no greater fire than ending a war, and that fire was a hungry one. He told you to feed your heart to it. Shiro told you to do the same.

For the first time in your life, you're glad you failed.

"We should sit," Shiro murmurs against your mouth.

You catch your breath, and like a teenager, wipe his saliva from your lips. Shiro clears his throat, face pink and ears burning. He casually turns away from you and pours coffee with his stilled bionic hand. His flesh hand is shaking, gripping the counter and whitening knuckles. You don't mention this, and instead, carefully sweep broken glass toward a corner in the sink. Avoiding slivers, once your hand is rinsed and dried, you slide its palm up Shiro's back. It stops at his shoulder, and you exchange uncertain glances.

It's clear neither one of you know what 'I love you' means in the grand scheme of everything.

You drop your hand and wonder if the answer is 'nothing.'

"I meant it," you say. It's a hard thing to reiterate now that the moment has cooled.

Shiro ruefully smiles. "I did, too."

He's sorry.

The Marmora base is located within the planet's densest foliage, hidden beneath a pink saltwater river canopied by a matching pink cavern. Before entering the territory, Shiro turns on a secondary cloaking device, making the ship only observable to the Marmora's technology. You aid with the landing, still humming from the confession.

Before disembarking, Shiro and you employ your IAPP helmets. You laugh at your reflection in his visor, and he nudges your ribs with a sigh. Shiro lowers the ramp, and you follow him outside. When the ramp is finally raised, you stride toward the unbeaten path's wild entry point. Without trying, you match each other's swift pace.

"No wonder Earth's been bartering for resources," you murmur, tilting back your head to peer through the surrounding trees. They're several-hundred-feet high, and while their limbs are gnarled like an old woman's hands, they hang with effortless wisdom. The mauve leaves are oval-shaped and twice your size, and they veil bulbous white fruit that could crush you on impact. "One of these trees could sustain a village for months."

"The UN's primary focus has been accessing us for medical research," Shiro says and heaves himself over a fallen branch. You vault it and gracefully land beside him. "They think because the IAPP is directed by humans they're the priority."

"Just because we debunked the Ptolemaic theory doesn't mean Earth stopped believing it's the center of the universe."

Shiro wearily laughs. "That's one way to put it."

"We haven't had many human immigrants," you say. You hunted for this number when you thumbed through the census. "Is that the IAPP's doing?"

"Earth's leaders have been insistent from the start," Shiro explains. His voice is leaning toward a lecture. "The IAPP doesn't like Earth's political history, especially after a security breach in the Green Wing bled incomplete, but still damning, research. We've barely been able to import Earth goods. I was able to bypass a few deadlocks for agricultural reasons, but that was to feed Ryou and give Allura access to books on human infancy. It reopened trade, but we've been in damage control mode for years."

You slow your steps. "What research could be bad enough to stop trade with Earth?"

He reaches up and taps the side of his helmet. The visor dissolves to reveal his face. You realize it must be important if he's willing to put his identity at risk. Shiro steels himself, but you recognize his guilt.

"We found commonalities between Galra and human DNA. We knew they were reproductively compatible, but when Matt was studying my genetic makeup versus Allura's to understand why we were having a difficult time conceiving Ryou, he decided to compare the Altean and Galra DNA, Altean and human DNA and then Galra and human DNA. We wanted to understand the compatible link between Galra and humans and replicate it for the sake of easier breeding between Alteans and humans."

"I'm guessing he found more than he expected."

Shiro grimaces. "For lack of a better explanation, I thought humans were watered down Alteans. Turns out Galra and humans have more in common than Alteans and humans."

"I exist," you snap, sideswiping the implied prejudice. "Everyone knows humans and Galra are compatible, but most species are compatible with Galra. The empire barely had pure Galra when we fought Zarkon."

"The public thinks humans are Galra ancestors," Shiro admits. You hastily turn off your visor. "Matt made a public announcement stating there's no scientific evidence supporting the idea, but the damage was done. If you want me to be transparent? It's more than sound enough to be a documented theory."

"If any of that were true, then Allura and you wouldn't have an issue conceiving. Lotor was Altean and Galra. If humans are Galra derivative, then it should be cake to have a kid with Allura."

"I wish you were right." Shiro motions for you to keep walking. "It's why I said primitive. There are still some evolutionary factors missing from humans. You wouldn't have a problem conceiving with Allura."

This thought makes your throat clench. On logic alone, it should be you married to Allura. You wonder what this thought has done for Shiro's view of you or if he's even considered it.

"Is this why I've been snubbed?" you ask, blunt and unforgiving.

He turns his visor back on, concealing himself. "There are plenty of highly respected Galra in the IAPP. You ended the regime, so you'll always be admired, but I've been told by several branches you need to regain regard as a leader. You disappeared. It was a disappointment."

"Great," you mutter. "Can't say I didn't see that coming."

"As long as you stick around and keep voicing your opinions, the people will listen. Don't overthink it, Keith. Just do your job."

"I've already initiated a war," you say, much too light.

"You're lucky Allura didn't kill you."

It really shouldn't, but that makes you laugh.

After sweating through your suits and breaking for water twice, Shiro and you reach the cavern. With his arms welded to his sides, Shiro steps into its river and splashes. You follow his lead, but you're met by rushing white light and zero water resistance. You instinctively brace yourself, and with boots slamming, land inside a purple room. It's plain with a single heavy door waiting on the opposite side.

"For a disbanded organization, this is pretty high security," you say, scanning the room with your sensors.

Shiro's visor dissolves again. "Disbanded is misleading. They're as active as the IAPP when it comes to gathering intelligence. With the upcoming conflicts, they'll be even more active."

"Wouldn't say I'm surprised."

A woman's disembodied voice bleeds through the walls. "Identify yourselves."

Shiro concisely articulates his full name and title, and you do the same. A blue scanner seated above the door drags its beam across the room. Wondering about your place amongst the Blades, you reach behind yourself and unsheathe your luxite blade, staring at its ornamental gem with a relaxed expression. Homesickness knots your guts, but when the door opens, you dart your stare toward the motion.

You left Team Voltron, but you also left the Blade of Marmora and the family history Kolivan promised you. Considering what you knew, it's a wonder they didn't hunt you down the moment you disappeared.

Two Blades stand behind the threshold, waiting inside a lift that gives you déjà vu. Shiro and you enter, and without a word, descend. You're aware there's nothing you can do to remediate respect between you and the Blades, but you still long to redact the past six years.

"Kolivan said you collected important intel," one says, having only interrupted the silence when the lift's doors slide open.

"Intel I thought you already had," you say, still raw from Kolivan's public chastising.

This Blade is a woman, and she's brusque and already impatient with the situation. She guides Shiro and you down a hall, and at the end, two concealed doors slide open. One opens onto an observatory, and the other reveals a dimly lit room with a single square table and chair. She points to the first with her dagger.

"Shiro, you will wait in there. Keith, follow me."

Shiro shucks off his helmet. He snatches your bicep and sets his jaw. "What do you mean I'll wait in there?"

"We've been ordered to collect information regarding the Galra uprising. It shouldn't take long, but it's better to interview without outside influence."

"They don't trust us together," you say to Shiro, mouth slanted in amusement. He applies pressure to your arm, fingers digging to anchor you by his side.

"Considering your history and the circumstances surrounding your recreant leave, we're under good authority to believe Shiro would be a negative stimulus. We want facts, Keith, not your emotions."

Using the word 'recreant' is the closest thing to a Blade of Marmora spanking. The single blow to your ego puts you in the corner, nose pressed to two conjoined walls.

You realize this is why Kolivan wanted Shiro to escort you to the Marmora base. By making you see how other Blades think of you and your relationship with the Black Paladin, he's scraping your entitlement to the organization. Kolivan wants to realign your self-perception. He wants you to see what Shiro symbolizes.

"This is uncalled for," Shiro says, anger perforating his regality. "We're giving you vital information for a war effort, and you're bringing in personal history from six years ago."

The other Blade speaks. You recognize his voice but can't place him. "Don't take it personally, Shiro. Anyway, the information belonged to us first. Keith officially left the IAPP, but he never left the Blades."

You remove your helmet and tuck it beneath your arm. Your eyes lock onto the interrogation room, and you step toward it. "Shiro, they're right. Wait in the other room."

Shiro's tight grip melds itself to your arm. "Keith, you don't know what they're going to do in there. They're calling you a deserter. We both know the punishment for that."

"I can hold my own," you promise, unmoved by the threat.

Wrinkling his nose, Shiro wrenches his hand from your arm. The male Blade guides him into the observatory, and you watch the door slide shut before walking into the other room. The woman doesn't offer her name, but she does direct you to the metal chair. You take your seat and drop your helmet onto the table's center. It sits like an offering, a severed head, but it's not a trophy. In fact, it's more of an admittance. A confession, even.

She stands directly in front of you. "You know the repercussions if you lie."

You lean back, legs spread and arms folded over your chest. Setting your expression to stone, you boldly level your chin. "Knowledge or death."

She grills you, and without mercy, makes Shiro watch.

The interrogation isn't the trials where you were there to prove yourself. Here, you're a fugitive, and no one trusts your intentions. Every answer you give she corrodes with hyper-examination. She wants exact dates and coordinates. She wants an awake to sleep play-by-play, but when you promise the ship containing your data and pilot logs scattered its info the day Shiro coerced you to New Altea, she doesn't believe you.

You get it. It sounds suspicious, and you want to strangle Shiro for accidentally pinning you as a traitorous liar.

Love, you think, is a bitch.

Impatient, she unveils a slender purple remote. She doesn't warn you before she turns the dial, but all at once, the gravity increases, weighing on you like a metric fuck ton. Your neck muscles fight it, but she turns the knob again, and your head strikes the table with a sick crack.

Blood bursts from your nose, but you wrench against the pressure, hands firm against the table. You stop fighting to even your breathing and remind yourself that you are in the wrong here. As an inactive Blade who turned his back without warning, it's their right to peel back your skin.

"I don't know what the city did with my ship. They probably trashed it." Drooling into a bloody puddle, you swallow, panting hard. "But it doesn't matter. As soon as the ship took damage, the logs wiped themselves and scattered. It was burned to a crisp along with everything on it. I can't give you its black box."

The holographic screen above her remote scans you. It's a lie detector. "Where did the logs scatter?"

"Nowhere you can access even if you tried."

"I see," she says, still reading the screen. The gravity's pressure intensifies, and you scream. Blood vessels in your eyes pop. "Elaborate."

One of your ribs splinters. You grit your teeth when the bone's knife-edge slides through your flesh. You can barely speak through your locked jaw. "Elaborating won't do anything. Check your screen. I'm not lying."

Without warning, she turns off the gravity. Before you can recover, she roundhouse kicks you off your chair. Normally, you would fight back, but you're in no place to try. Red saliva descends from your mouth like a spider, and you remain seated, attempting to will your vision straight.

"I know where the bases are," you say for the hundredth time. "You want data I can't give you. There's nothing I can do about it. In order to eventually access it, you have to trust me."

"If you don't tell us what you know, then we will find ways to motivate you."

The wall behind her becomes a window to the observatory.

Shiro is kneeled and blindfolded, surrounded by six Blades with their weapons drawn. Shoulders rising and dropping, his bionic arm is imprisoned by a bracelet meant to disengage the power that helps him flit through time. The fact the Marmora sent Shiro to his knees without an explosion would surprise you if Kolivan didn't train him. Kolivan knows Shiro's weakest points better than anyone in the universe. This fact doesn't lighten the red in your vision. Quite the opposite, actually. It saturates it.

You leap to your feet and unsheathe your luxite blade, pointing it at her as the dagger becomes a sword. No matter what they say, you're still a Blade in both ability and whatever greater voice recognizes you.

"Whether or not that's real," you begin, voice as sharp as your weapon, "I've had enough. I told you what I know and what's useful to the Blade of Marmora."

"You are the least qualified to determine that."

She doesn't move to defend herself but lifts two fingers.

Behind her, a member lowers his blade to Shiro's throat and presses. You lurch forward, but that movement acts as a catalyst for your worst nightmare. Without mercy, the sharp edge jerks back and drags through Shiro's jugular. At first, the cut is clean and unassumingly thin, but you know better. You've cut too many throats not to know better. Adrift in dread, you time the moment the red line appears. It pretends to be a trivial scratch only to bubble, and with Shiro's gasp, cascade like a crimson curtain.

"It's in the Black Lion!" you scream, heart and vomit scaling your throat.

It's not real. You know the Blade of Marmora's tactics, but you can't fathom risking it. Not after what Shiro and you said to each other on the ship.

If it were a simpler injury, then you would have slaughtered the interrogator, but you don't have time. You kick the table toward her and knock the remote from her hand. Roundhouse kicking her skull in revenge, her head slams against the metal door, and she collapses.

You lunge for the window.

You slam your blade into the thick glass and yank to carve a makeshift door. As soon as you tug, electricity strong enough to kill a horse floods your sword and numbs your tongue and toes. It routes through your body like a circuit, straining your lungs and turning your hands to coal.

You don't let go. Stupidly, you think you can will it to not kill you.

With fire as your element, you attempt to cleanse the voltage from your system, but it resists. It could be a new energy, but you're also distracted by Shiro's stunned frame. His blood keeps pouring. He's going to die alone.

Your burning skin's stench fills the room, but you attempt to yank the blade again.

" _Since when have I ever put loving you first?"_

Fingers snatch your hair.

With utmost force, the interrogator flings you onto your back and signals again, but this time with one finger. You sit up and watch Shiro's body fall forward, unbreathing. You don't hear yourself scream, but you know when it happens. It tears your throat in half, and you're dying, too.

"Why would you transfer the logs to the Black Lon when you know it's inaccessible? It's astounding Kolivan made you his successor when you lack any foresight."

"It's the safest place for intel," you murmur, twitching and staring past her at the window. "No one can access it except Shiro and me."

She kicks your throat, and you skid across the floor until your head meets the wall. In hindsight, you decide you should have fought back, but the Blades are a summit in the IAPP. You have to preserve their faith in the administration, which means you have to preserve their faith in you.

"It was the right thing to do," you coldly murmur to the ground, unable to fight the electricity's damage. "It's the only way we'll get the lions out of storage for the war effort."

She draws back a breath.

Before the world sinks, you hear the Blade's closing words. They are a message from Kolivan.

"You will always be a Blade."

Then nothing.

The void you enter is dreamless. It's as quiet as a lake in the mid-winter night.

Beneath your body is a rhythmic sway, and your thoughts are moth-eaten and unpatched. You think you're rotting on a raft or that you've become a belly-up fish in the aforementioned lake. Either way, the rocking is soothing, and you hope it's all you notice when you drown. The drowning part is inevitable, you decide. Your body has been stunned to immobility, so even if you wanted to, you can't swim.

You drift through the liminal space inside your head, but after long deliberation, suppose you should attempt to live. After an internal monologue about doggy paddling and how boring death might be, you force open your eyes.

Folded on your chest, your arms twitch, and your body is curled inward like you've returned to the womb. It occurs to you that you're not in water and are actually dry. The fuzz in your eyes clears, and you notice dusk and knitted branches passing overhead.

Someone is carrying you.

"Shiro," you say, hoarse. You try to move your hands, but the third-degree burns make you choke on a scream.

"Don't move," Shiro says. His voice drifts with the clouds. "We're almost to the ship."

"We're out."

"And the Blade of Marmora has a mess to clean up."

You wonder what he did. You wonder where the IAPP and Marmora now stand.

After a wordless trek, Shiro boards the ship.

He carefully arranges you on a cot in the kitchen. Shiro disappears into the medic closet and returns with a needle and vial you can't read. When you open your mouth and ask what he's doing, he doesn't respond.

Shiro rolls you over and unzips your suit, carefully peeling the cloth off your arms and letting the top hang low at your hips. He methodically seeks out a vein in your arm but hesitates, watching your unfocused stare.

"I'm giving you an antibiotic and painkiller. It might pinch."

The burns on your hands are too distracting for you to feel anything. You don't register the injection, but in seconds, notice the sting in your fingers subsiding. Nausea wrenches through your gut, and you urgently lift yourself onto elbows, hands open wide in an attempt to keep them from touching anything.

"I'm going to throw up," you say, urgent.

Shiro hoists himself to his feet and grabs an ice bucket. The second it clatters to the floor, you lean over and retch, your whole body contracting. A cool hand pushes back your bangs, and your stomach continues to empty.

It's only pacified when you burp bile. Shakily catching your breath, Shiro rubs your back and presses his mouth to the top of your head, eerily nonverbal and lost in his head.

"That wasn't electricity," you say through your stupor. "I could have channeled it."

"It wasn't," Shiro confirms. "They knew exactly what they were dealing with."

He hooks you to an IV connected to a bag of blue liquid, and it makes you woozy. Once certain you're stable, Shiro kisses your forehead and climbs to his feet. He leaves long enough to engage the autopilot. The last two things you recall are the ship's thrusters inhaling and the engine's purr lulling you into stasis.

Sleep becomes warmth that glues your bones to flat surfaces. It reminds you of early mornings in the Garrison when your bunk was a temptress and leaving her behind felt criminal. For a while, you slept in socks solely to make throwing your legs over the mattress edge and touching the tile flooring bearable.

That was so long ago.

"Keith is stable, Shiro. Quit blaming yourself and eat. We both know he's survived worse than this. The guy's the most endearing cockroach I know."

Pidge's voice reaches into your sleep and grabs you by the scruff of your neck. It yanks you from what feels like hypothermic comfort, and you emerge, gasping and heaving.

Waking up startles you into a panic attack. Your throat closes.

"Fuck!" you shout, heaving.

Aside from the dusty yellow glow pulsing from spherical floor lamps, the room is dark. You recognize your surroundings as the Green Wing's medical bay, but it's not a standard hospital room. It's the intensive care ward, and you've been assigned a private space with protective doors.

"Keith," Shiro croons. His warm hand lands on your shoulder. "Lie back down for a second. You don't want to risk moving too fast."

You're not sure when you sat up, but he's right. You're vertical, and you're vertical far too soon.

"He's stable," Pidge reminds Shiro, but she's more amused than irritated.

Not stable for long, your brain decides.

You never get the chance to look at your friends. Your eyes glaze and dive to your lap instead. Though the hospital's electric hum goes mute, the nothingness bloats around you. Air refuses to enter your lungs, and for some reason, no matter how fast you work to diffuse the internal bomb, you can't stop its ticking. Your chest squeezes like a fist prepared to punch, and you rasp again and again. Gnarling the bedsheets beneath you, your heart thunders, and you instinctively cough to fight palpitations. Shaking your head as if the refusal is enough to prevent a collapse, your gasp flips inside out and becomes fraught panting.

"Shiro," you say, bewildered.

Shiro whispers 'panic attack' to Pidge, and he lithely climbs onto your bed. He sits cross-legged in front of you and clinically places both hands on the sides of your head. They guide your face upward, and Shiro makes you look at him. Tears spurred by your body's attempt to asphyxiate pour, and you sneer. The last thing you want is for Shiro to think you're crying over a fight. You're known for battle elasticity, and you'll be damned if that stops five minutes after entering the IAPP as a leader.

Pidge's feet scuff across the floor. The hospital room's door opens and shuts behind her with a click.

Shiro blurs in front of you.

"Your body is springing back from severe emotional and physical blows," he says, rubbing his thumbs back and forth along your jaw. The motion rocks you, and you feed into the rhythm, still sucking in breaths."Pidge healed your hands and the burns on your arms. She's testing for latent fibrillation, but nothing life-threatening was found in the cryopod. What was found are minor internal burns, but it's nothing our doctors can't handle. You'll be able to go back to your room tonight."

"I'm okay," you lie. You don't know why you think you should lie to him.

"You're okay," Shiro echoes, but it doesn't sound like he's lying. You're okay. You're fine. "If you don't feel okay right now, then you are for sure safe."

The interrogation comes back like a nose-diving missile. You shudder and see blood. "They killed you."

Shiro clears his throat and darts his eyes to the door. He gathers himself and looks back at you. "They tricked you."

"I knew it wasn't real," you whisper, defending your intelligence. "It was my body. My body wouldn't let me stand by and risk the chance you could die alone."

Shiro stalls and drops his hands from your head. He scrapes his nails down his neck and tilts his face away. His gaze shifts back to you, contemplating. After a moment, he shifts forward.

Without uncertainty, Shiro slots his mouth against yours, and you readily kiss back, scarred palms scrambling for his chest and gripping his shirt. He forgets himself and grabs the back of your head with his other hand, letting you pull him closer. You taste the mutual relief, but it makes your bones throb rather than feel better. The want is too much for one body, and you unfurl your legs, wrapping one cool metal limb around his waist and clamoring onto his lap. He leans you back, but you fight your way forward, centering you both and encircling your arms around his neck.

You're clinging.

Shiro disconnects the kiss, guilt emerging like storm clouds. "Pidge will be back soon. You need food anyway. You've been unconscious for days."

Days – but you feel like you've only been asleep for hours. Then again, the staleness in your mouth says otherwise. The fact Shiro kissed you is both mortifying, and somehow, telling.

The balloon inside your chest deflates, and you can think again. Shiro notices and ruffles your hair like you're the cadet he met a lifetime ago.

"How often do you have attacks?" Shiro asks as you slide off his lap.

His eyes are bright with sincere concern. They glimmer. They actually  _glimmer_ , but you dismissively answer.

"We've all had bigger ones. I probably won't think twice about it tomorrow."

He doesn't dig. You figure he knows better.

Shiro climbs off the bed and orders food, and Pidge returns with a water bottle and pill meant to curb your anxiety. You shake your head at the medication but take the water. She calls you a 'stubborn ass,' and you point two passive finger guns in her direction. Pidge grabs an 'air' bazooka from an invisible locker, shuts the locker's door and hoists the weapon over her shoulder. She kneels with a devoted but painful slam and aims. Pidge peers through the lens, and you lift both hands, seemingly surrendering to her devastating firearm.

You reach behind yourself and retrieve a 'grenade.'

There's a knock on the door, and you throw the weapon. Pidge screams.

The door swings open, and Lance steps forward with your food tray. He glances between Pidge and you, scrutinizing, and it dawns on him what's happening. Lance plops the tray onto a nearby table and tugs a gun off his back. He shakes the double barrel shotgun once and points it at you. With energy you shouldn't have considering your lack of nourishment and waning post-coma, you shift forward into a dynamic lunge.

Shiro takes one step forward. He plants a palm against your chest and inelegantly shoves you onto your back.

Lance drops the act and grins. "Kolivan should be thanking his lucky stars you're alive. If that's what we're calling how you look right now."

You think to raise a middle finger, but your eyes land on Shiro before you do. He crosses the room and grabs the forgotten tray. Pidge swivels the portable desk across your lap, and as if in sync, Shiro deposits the food in front of you with a clatter. Babying you, he stabs a straw into your juice box. It's the same aloe drink from his ship.

"Have you talked to Kolivan?" you ask Shiro, taking the drink.

Pidge scoffs, and it's then you know you missed something important. Shiro rubs his mouth and sits in the recliner. The cup stack beside the seat tells you it's been his home for days, but Shiro interrupts the observation with a grunt. He leans over his knees, lips a surly line you know well.

"Kolivan and I spoke."

Lance swoops in and drops himself onto your mattress. He barely avoids crushing your feet. "Did you know that on New Altea  _spoke_  also means  _fight until the gory end_?"

Your eyebrows fling high, and you turn to Shiro. It's unlike him to make anger displays when political peace is at risk. The man is a basement. He's the perfect temperature.

Shiro clears his throat. "Lance is exaggerating. Kolivan and I had a conversation in the training room. It turned into a minor altercation we've since absolved. No one met their  _end_."

One of your eyebrows falls. You smirk. "Gallant."

Pidge reaches for the plush dumpling on your plate and grabs your hand. She drops it onto your palm and cuts Lance a condemning stare. "You'll bring up Kolivan's fight with Shiro but not your own."

Lance goes rigid.

You lean back and drag your gaze from Lance's elegantly splayed form back to Shiro's unmoved demeanor. Both men can't keep their eyes off the floor, and you subconsciously bring the bun to your mouth and bite. Its filling reminds you honey pork, but there's a medicinal undertone. You recognize Hunk's recipe, and if he made it, then he likely plugged it with rejuvenation drugs.

Their silence to irritates you. They're actually toddlers.

You turn to Pidge and gesture, awaiting her explanation.

She coolly leaves your side and retrieves her tablet from a low stool. "This is out of my wheelhouse. You'll have to claw it out of them when you have the energy."

"Eat," Shiro insists. He cards a hand through his bangs.

_Eat for me._

Lance remains clamped and doesn't say anything to Shiro or you. He picks his teeth and wipes it on the comforter, and you wonder how your stable condition took precedence over the IAPP's endless checklists. There's something amiss, but you don't have the vitality to dissect it when your guts are beginning to burn. More and more you're remembering what it's like to experience pain. You've been playing it way too safe.

"I'm going back to the Blue Wing," you announce and shove aside the lap desk. "Less –  _uh_  – pressure."

Shiro stands as if prepared to fight you, but Pidge intersects, stepping into his path.

"He's fine," she orders. The command is in her tone, not her words.

Hobbling away from the bed, you're gelatinous in the legs. That said, you're halfway across the room before Shiro grabs the bed's sheet and thinks to cover your exposed ass.

Lance chokes, but you give him the finger and continue on.

After returning to your room and showering away the stench of dry blood, sweat and smoked skin, you decide fine and functional are not identical twins. They probably don't even share a womb.

You confine yourself to your room for a day before you gather your dismembered ego and puzzle together its bones. It's a task, especially after Shiro forbids you from training with him until your internal injuries are no longer tender. The order is given via a single sentence on your watch, and you scoff, answering with a 'right.'

The rejection you feel is an illusion wedged between two dense books symbolic for your thick skull. Shiro's stark text tells you he regrets kissing you whether or not you know all watch conversations are logged. Any enthusiasm Shiro has for you will never appear in a text.

You know you're looking for an out here. If Shiro cuts the cord, then you get to say you saw it coming. You've been preparing for the worst for as long as you can remember, and there's no reason to stop doing that now.

That said, this supposed regret doesn't prevent Shiro from politely visiting your bedroom door. The visits are fleeting check-ins, uneventful and business-like. Respecting his standoffishness, you never invite him inside.

It's only after days of muted exchanges does Shiro enter, uninvited.

When your door beeps, dawn is breaking and you're watching an Alforis news broadcast with coffee in hand. The brief noise is the only grace period before the door slides open, revealing Shiro dressed in his IAPP suit. The suns aren't even cutting light, and he's alert, briskly stepping inside the dim room as if he owns the place.

"Morning," you say, not looking at him. You slurp back a hot mouthful.

It's a bold move for Shiro, but you don't acknowledge it as unusual. Considering he lingers within reach of the threshold and his arms are resolutely paved across his chest, bold is putting it lightly.

"Keith, we need to discuss something."

You exhale above the mug's rim. "That's an understatement."

"It's about the Blades."

So he's there to lecture you, not fuck you.

What a creature of habit.

Your tentacles impatiently wriggle behind your pelvic wall, and you know you need to inspect the calendar because there's only one reason they react without arousal provoking them.

You refocus on the conversation at hand. Shiro is there to chastise your reconciliation methods.

Surprise, surprise.

"Talk to me about it in the Red Wing when I'm in my suit, which by the way, won't be today. I have meetings elsewhere."

Shiro doesn't budge. "You need to talk to Kolivan as soon as possible."

You set aside your mug and tug your sleep shirt overhead, tossing it onto the floor and reaching for its replacement. Shiro watches you, stare intense.

"I don't need to do anything," you say, parading your emotional wounds. Kolivan was a mentor when Shiro became a lover. He even once claimed you were akin to his cub. It's a blow, but leaving the Blade was surely one for him, too. You parse your feelings and decide they're much too human. "I'll approach him when I have time, Shiro. I'm up to my neck in paperwork, and you know we're slammed with assemblies."

You're overwhelmed, but everyone is. Shiro is projecting himself as hardline in an attempt to make himself as unapproachable as possible, but he sighs and dulls his façade, even dropping his arms.

"Our relationship with the Blades will make or break your war effort, Keith. We need them to trust you. Kolivan is willing to overlook what he thinks was a juvenile indiscretion."

"Well, that's rich."

"Blame me for what happened all you want, Keith, but only communication between you and Kolivan will make a difference. This proves he was right. I'm too emotionally involved with you to address the situation."

Fighting a smile, you're inclined to agree. "You punched him."

Shiro crosses his arms. "I'm not proud of that."

"That makes one of us."

He redirects his aggression into an unrelated observation.

Your style.

"High neck clothing is a symbol of war."

The black turtleneck you're wearing clings like elastane. Shrugging, you yank a leather jacket over the shirt and sigh. The jacket is a modernized take on a motorcycle jacket, but there are no zippers, buttons or hardware. It's red and sharp lines, which harmonizes with your mussed hair. When you're not in a meeting, you forsake slicked back hair for bangs that fall forward in a humidity rumpled heap Allura once called 'smart but disheveled.'

You finally answer. "Call it foreshadowing."

You stretch your arms high above your head, crack your back and walk forward. Closing the gap between you two with rapid steps that imply you're prepared to leave, you only pause in front of him to be liminal. Shiro doesn't budge, eyes narrowed on your face. Unbothered, you reflect his expression but with expectation.

"Don't cause unnecessary rifts," Shiro warns. "You know your popularity in the Red Wing matters more than ever."

"Honestly, Shiro, I can't tell if you support the initiative or not."

"I trust you," he says, articulating each syllable. It's so honest it makes your stomach riven.

You reach for his waist, and when your fingers land, Shiro doesn't flinch. In fact, he relaxes, softening his features of interest in lieu of criticism.

"Do you?"

"Always."

Finally, Shiro caves and encircles an arm around your waist, tugging you close. It's the first contact you've had since he kissed you in the Green Wing, and it's too seamless to be real.

You touch his Adam's apple. "Show me then."

Shiro kisses your temple, but you turn your head, making him kiss you on the mouth.

He relents, easy as ever. Shiro's fingers press into your hips, and you part your lips against his, breath quickening and fingers gliding up his slick suit. Shiro mutters your name, and you slip into the moment like a hot bath.

"When are you going to fuck me?" you whisper.

He retracts with a breathy 'fuck.' You arch an eyebrow, pleased with the response. Shiro realizes what you're acknowledging and pushes his fingers into your bangs. He inspects you with a slight smile and swipes a thumb along your forehead.

"I love you," he murmurs. It's so hushed you're not sure he meant to say it.

You only realize why he was quiet when you also softly reply. "I love you too."

Glancing at his watch, Shiro rolls his eyes. It's directed at what he read, not you. "We'll discuss fucking later. I'm going to get fucked in another way if I'm late for this presentation."

That was crass.

It's a miracle you take it in stride and don't prod more. You grab your bag off the floor and cross your arms, ambling alongside him toward the door.

"Try and pencil me in between the metaphorical fucking."

Shiro laughs, but you hear the disdain. "I'm not turning you into an obligation."

You no longer wonder why Allura and Shiro are uptight. The idea of intimacy being a scheduled event sounds like hell.

When you're not with Shiro, getting screwed isn't on your top five, but it doesn't take a sex guru to know the best sex is the sex no one plans. Add an intimacy itinerary to the pressure to reproduce and you're looking at the emotional equivalent to slamming sperm and eggs together in a petri dish. It's morally reprehensible to feel bad for Allura when you're a knife in her heel, but you do anyway.

Lance is standing on his landing when you exit onto yours with Shiro. He's bleary-eyed and watching a holographic message from Allura. Hearing your slight laughter, he stares through the miniature replica hovering above his watch and eyes you. You feel his speculation rub your face raw, but having learned from him, think better than to deflect. You lean over the ramp and acknowledge him with an exhale.

"She's already on it?" you ask.

Lance nods toward Shiro, arching an eyebrow. "Looks like he's on it, too."

You might have walked into that.

You don't know whether or not Shiro heard, and to be honest, you don't want to know. You descend the stairs behind him, and polite as ever, Shiro greets Lance with a wave. He speedily departs for his meeting, and the Blue Wing doors slam shut behind him. Lance jogs down his staircase, too chipper for the good of mankind.

He whacks your arm with the back of his hand. "Man, you two are  _friendly_  again. What's that about? Was that morning coffee good? I know how you love a strong cup of tall, dark and handsome."

"Shut up," you say and elbow his ribs. He takes the jab well and swings an arm around your shoulders. You let him walk you toward the main exit. "He gave me a lecture."

"What a creature of habit," Lance says. He blows a raspberry against your temple and ruffles your hair, making you smile. "Shiro talked to Allura and had the deed to my island property drawn up. All I have to do is throw down blueprints and we'll have an IAPP signed and sealed debauchery house. If you've got a second, then I'd welcome some of your common architectural sense. I'm self-aware. I know I have none."

You glance over your shoulder. "Don't talk like that in front of your spiral staircases."

"I intentionally designed them without ears."

"Always so much smarter than you give yourself credit for."

"I mean it, Keith. I want your help with this."

Stepping over the wide threshold, you break from his grip. "Let me get back to you tonight. I'm running late for a meeting, and I have a feeling the person expecting me won't wait long."

"Better be good for it."

Lance salutes you and redirects himself to the Blue Wing's core for what you're guessing is breakfast. While you know his schedule is as torturous as anyone else's, you're baffled by his ability to not give a single shit. He's always rescinding plans for dinner or drinks, but he's never rushing, late or accentuating his inevitable crow's feet with a furrowed brow. Since you were kids, he's been easy going, and while annoying at times, you wish you knew how to emulate his capacity for being water and feathers.

You find yourself in the Black Wing's enclosed veranda that doubles as an early morning eatery with suspended black stools and matching triangular tables. It's a bustling extension of the gym's watering hole, but you've never frequented because it's so goddamn performative. Shiro can paint it any way he likes, but a pig wearing lipstick is still a pig and courtiers in skintight bodysuits are still courtiers.

At the farthest end, Sendak is waiting, seated by a window overlooking the pink ocean. New Altea is in its transitional phase between Summer II and Warm Autumn. The suns outside are rising one after another, but you've noticed the second biggest sun, Trigel, distancing itself with each morning. You're still adjusting to the planet's six-year orbit and its double seasons that vary in severity. Mainly, you track the endless solar eclipses to protect your eyes.

Sendak notices you and raises two fingers. His expression is that of a man bored to death. You imagine the IAPP has to be grueling for someone who was practically raised on an active warship.

"The emperor delayed me," you say and collapse onto the stool across from him. A waitress appears and you order your second cup of coffee, forgoing food. "Thanks for meeting me here. I know we're both busy."

Sendak inspects you above his mug. "I won't deny your invitation came as a surprise, Commander. Our history isn't what one would call amicable. After all, it was you who contested my IAPP application the loudest."

You take that with grace, smiling. "I was a cub with several emotional motivators. Personal ones."

 _My mate hated you,_ you think, teeth pressing together in memory.

"You are still a cub," he says. "The IAPP is overseen by five infants with iron grips, but I suppose one Galra can't fault another for looking to protect his mate."

It's not surprising he knows about you and Shiro, but you still lift your brow.

Ignoring the blow, you take a sip. "We'll reminisce later. I have a tight schedule and need immediate clarity. You're the only one who loudly supports the war initiative, and I want you on my side, faithfully."

Your eyes burn through each other, but he relents after a meditative pause.

"On principle alone, I stand with you." Sendak shifts his gaze from side to side and leans in on an arm. "When the IAPP was presented to the free people, your proposition for democracy is what won the coalition's backing. The implementation of a monarchy has been a blade in sides since it was finalized six years ago."

Sendak's tone is treason, but you let it slide, relaxing on your elbows.

"Thanks for the ego boost, but after I propositioned that plan, it was brought to my attention my political rationale is too human, even for someone who's half-Galra. In a diverse species administration, using that logic would have left us in decade-long deadlocks. The universe is too big to pick representatives and unanimously vote. The IAPP was bound for mixed government no matter what."

"Democracy is capable of being more than a single planet school of thought. We have the technology and means to maintain it. The true issue is that the empress doesn't trust anyone who didn't fight alongside her."

In Allura's defense, you hardly trust the people who did fight alongside you. Rather than admit that, you craftily sway your language to Sendak's interests. You condescendingly recite the argument used against you.

"Democracy is inherently human because it's the assumption humans are rational enough to pick who represents them."

"Human rationality saved the known universe," Sendak counters. "Voltron chose humans for a reason, and need I remind you, Commander, that you are not wholly human? If human rationality is the foundation for your home planet's laws, then you couldn't be tried in Earth's court system. If you, as Galra, conceive Earth Democracy as plausible groundwork, then you, as Galra, see the law as law is, which is nurture and not nature."

You laugh, but it's charred, bitter. "It was also brought to my attention this psychology and philosophy can't be willed as universal solely because I comprehend it to be."

"There is a universal reason for intelligent life. We have both the Scale of Reason and a military force outweighing Zarkon's. This is basic science, philosophy, and numbers, but when the doors shut behind the IAPP's chosen circle, they see themselves as gods, not military men who are lucky to be alive. They say you couldn't will something into law, but a monarchy is willing everything into law with one word."

"Tell them, not me."

"With all due respect, Commander, as Red Paladin, it is your job to tell them."

You're taken aback by his forward tone. Not because you expect him to respect you or see you as anything but his equal or less, but because he has full confidence in the idea that Allura and Shiro have to hear you. You've never considered the actual gravity you have in the IAPP. Until this point, you've continued to pantomime the role of a general. It was the position you wanted overall, but your real one is vastly different.

It weighs more.

You rub your chin and settle your cheek in a palm, keeping your voice low. "You think they're tyrants in the making."

"Wrong," Sendak corrects. "I know tyranny. They're naïve idealists who no longer want to accept death is an unavoidable sacrifice. They're tired and running from leadership's woes. There are more supporters whispering about you than you realize. When you step forward, they will follow your lead and fall into line."

You slowly raise your head and cross your arms. "I'm not here to start a civil war."

"Is it a civil war if you sit at the head alongside two monarchs like an advisor? You're maintaining an administration's true interests."

"I'm more than an advisor," you counter, which you realize is a very different tune from the one you started with. Ruling was never your intention. "I carry as much weight as Shiro and Allura."

"Then where's your title,  _Commander_?"

It's been a long time since someone was able to grab you by the scruff and rub your nose in piss, but Sendak has done it. The issue here is it's not your scent mark. These are Allura's and Shiro's stains you have to sniff. These are their mistakes you're being blamed for, and now, have to fix.

By accident, your vulnerabilities spill. "I don't want to become an emperor."

"Traditionally, Galra rise through the ranks through rite of battle. After you slayed Lotor, you became the Galra's emperor de facto. If you wished to assume the title, then you could, uncontested."

Your stomach collapses but there's no choice but to calmly marinate in the fact. No one brought it to your attention, and you're left to wonder who knew. Surely, the implications were painted everywhere. People pointedly refrained from letting this information spill onto your lap. Whoever managed to silence the masses must have been powerful. Kolivan would have never willingly kept this from you, but then again, you were also in a rehabilitations trench during the final upheaval around the Galra Empire resection.

Shiro didn't let anyone near you, which you were thankful for at the time. Now you resent your weakness and the anxieties he coddled.

"Zarkon's empire no longer exists," you remind him, annoyed but mostly lost inside your head. "There's nothing to assume."

"There is a rebel uprising to sway. To have the rebels represented in the IAPP would mean to take control of their name."

Bristling, you swallow the lump in your throat. This is not where you wanted the conversation to go. "That's reinstating something I lost a leg to deconstruct. Forgive me if I'm slow on the uptake, but I can't tell if you want a democracy or another Galra monarchy."

"The only way to take down a system is to be inside the system. As a Blade, you would know that better than anyone."

You suck in a deep breath and respire, closing your eyes to alleviate the heaviness on your shoulders. Rather than continue with the conspiring tone, you take your mug back into your hands and bring it to your mouth.

"I'll consider these opinions," you mildly say. Once again, you hear Shiro in your words. "Before I can do that, I need the intel you've gathered on the rebels. I don't mean just what you shared with the others either."

He gives you a sly smile, possibly impressed. "That can be arranged."

Sendak and you make the decision to go over the information he's gathered together. There are holes that can't be filled without him. After comparing schedules, you two set a date for the end of the week.

"Keep this to yourself," you order, rising to your feet.

"As you wish, Commander."

Even with your back turned to him in the crowded eatery, you feel Sendak's eyes levitating the hairs on your neck. There's an intensity there that reminds you of a long-lost sentiment, but you restrain the shudder until you're free from the Black Wing's watchful eyes. It was your intention for people to see you talking to Sendak, but that doesn't mean you wanted your weakness exposed.

Emperor. Fuck.

There are too many implications there that ride directly against your platform. As much as you want an ally, you know Sendak will always have ulterior motives.

You try to imagine yourself as an emperor and feel sick.

Your second meeting is in the Yellow Wing, but afterward, you plan to explore Alforis. More than anything, you want to understand the city you're overseeing.

You're striding down a private passageway beneath the main hall when a hand lunges from a side door and seizes your bicep. Your eyes register the robotic fingers, so you keep your reflexes at bay and let yourself be tugged through the narrow doorway. It hums shut behind you.

"It's been a long time since the disembodied hand seized me from a hallway."

Shiro is in front of you wearing a smile that seems 'proud.' You swipe your fist against his chest, and he grabs the connected elbow. Like it's second nature, he tugs you into a kiss.

The sensation brings back old memories. When you were doing your best to be clandestine on the castle ship, intimate moments were spontaneous and out of sight.

He guides your arm over his shoulder. "How busy will you be tomorrow afternoon?"

Your fingers scratch the hair along the back of his head and you squint, thinking. "Yeah. Still not really sure what is and isn't busy in this place."

"Let me see your schedule."

Never letting him go because the contact is that nice, you raise your watch and summon the next day's schedule. Shiro inspects it, eyes sweeping it for less than thirty seconds. He adjusts two meetings, deletes one and then flicks two back an hour.

"A seasoned veteran," you say, staring in awe at the free space.

"You haven't seen the Black Garden yet."

Interest piqued, you shut your calendar. "Cemlo told me it was an honor to be invited. No one goes there, not even Allura."

Shiro shifts his gaze and leans forward, kissing your chin as that information seeps. You turn your face toward his temple, appreciating how this hulking man still has the capacity to nuzzle his face into your neck as if seeking shelter. It's a mutual feeling you give each other. He's the only walls you've ever known.

He airily kisses your jaw once, but it tumbles into a light suck that rights your back. The gesture is tinged with emotional poverty, so you don't guide him away. You close your eyes instead, murmuring his name.

Encouraging him on a busy day isn't the best move.

"If you're late and Allura sees we were together she's going to start doing what teachers do in elementary school where they won't let best friends sit together because all they want to do is play."

Shiro stiffens but doesn't stop, tugging down your shirt collar. "Don't talk about my wife while my lips are on you."

You whistle. It doesn't have the birdlike lightheartedness Lance executes. Even though you adopted the whistle reaction from him, the two of you sing very different songs.

There's no reason to pick that fight right now, so you stroke back his bangs and let him continue.

"Human kissing is really singular," you murmur, fighting the oncoming haze.

Shiro groans warm against your throat. His teeth scrape the curve of your neck, and he licks upward, sending your ears back and mouth open in a silent gasp.

"The turtlenecks might be a better idea than I thought."

Teeth touching your throat didn't feel half as good until second puberty, and he knows that.

You halfheartedly step back. "You can't make my tentacles drop before a meeting. No one has time to deal with that."

Shiro casually takes one of your hands and guides it between his legs. He's half-hard, and that is, you think, very flattering. Your immediate response is to press and leisurely rub back and forth. Shiro buckles and returns to your mouth, kissing hard. You both emit a shared groan, but the intensity of it makes you retract again.

You wipe your mouth, and he checks his watch. The moment disperses as if it never happened, and masking his panting, Shiro swallows.

"Tomorrow," he says, cryptic as ever, and nods to the door.

You're 91% sure he's going to jerk off the second the door shuts behind you. Deciding he deserves that release and his dignity, you vocalize zero observations and see yourself out with a final kiss.

The next meeting is about taxation, and it rubs your brain raw, so when it comes to an end, you practically sprint from the encasing boardroom. On your way out, you spot Allura walking toward you. A sickness you've never experienced before launches ice missiles into your abdomen, but you bind your heart.

"One of those meetings," Allura observes, nodding at your civilian clothes. She's radiant in her custom IAPP suit. "I'm envious."

You shrug and dolefully smile. "If it makes you feel better, then I just had to listen to Cemlo talk about taxes for an hour and a half."

She glances away and twists her mouth to the side, sheepish. "I believe my envy excused itself."

"Is that what I think it is?" you ask, pointing at what she's holding.

It looks like a Mason jar filled with honeycomb. Allura raises the amber goo to the sunlight and tilts it on its side.

"Hunk called it honey. We've been mass breeding Earth bees in the Yellow and Green Wing to encourage the Earth agriculture Hunk oversees. Something about this planet helps them thrive, but between you and me, I find eating anything projected from another creature's esophagus pocket unappetizing."

You snort. "It sounds grosser than it is. Ever try it?"

"The Green Wing adheres to strict authorization guidelines," she explains and tilts the jar again. "It was only approved for consumption this morning. Hunk was more than enthusiastic about the permit, but Pidge called the testing the biggest waste of her time. Shiro didn't look at her, which means it likely was."

Imagining Pidge testing honey makes you choke.

You level with Allura, licking your lips to recede your smile. "Testing honey after watching Hunk stick alien herbs in his mouth every week for years probably felt like a waste of time."

"Then you can blame yourself. That hinterbush mix up might have left me cautious for the rest of my life," Allura says, shifting her weight onto a single foot.

Mouth opening, you clamp it shut and scratch behind an ear. "Didn't we make a pact to never mention that again? It was an honest mistake. We groveled for weeks."

"We were in the middle of an intergalactic war, and Shiro and you turned the Black Lion's cockpit into an iidlobush hotbox."

Before you can stop yourself, you flash teeth. "It's been years. Can I laugh now?"

Allura purses her lips, but the corner of her mouth twitches. "Absolutely not."

Iidlobush looks and smells exactly like hinterbush, but it's one of the universe's strongest aphrodisiacs and commonly used on endangered species the size of small planets. You haven't been half as horny or out of your fucking mind since smoking it, but you weren't alone. Shiro drooled puddles and let you fuck him until you were both bleeding out and covered in oozing sores the cryopods later categorized as 'devastating.'

You're sure it's not funny now that she's married to Shiro, but after Coran found you both and offered a diagnosis, you recall she laughed until she was crying on the floor.

"No wonder the Black Lion didn't want us half the time," you passively say. "I'd hate us after that, too."

Allura groans when you laugh and checks her watch. "Not to cut this short, but I'm afraid I'm expected elsewhere. I feel like I haven't seen you outside meetings since you returned, Keith. We should have lunch."

You want to, but you know that's absolutely not an option now that Shiro is playing you like a fiddle. It churns your stomach, but all you can do is play along with the idea.

"Whenever you have the time," you offer.

She was a best friend, an emotional patron for the excruciating losses you experienced again and again, but also, an anchor who knew when to prioritize your true capacity as a member of Voltron. Knowing you can't untangle yourself from her husband makes you want to dig your fingers inside yourself and disembowel.

This is something your heart can't confer, which is why you leave Balmera Palace in a flurry. On your newly finished hover bike, you take the levitating skyways past the ritzy downtown and deep into the belly of the lesser developed refugee encampments. There is an assortment of makeshift teahouses and restaurants lit by floating lanterns, and they're fenced off by street sellers. They remind you of the tiny communities floating around the deserts back on Earth. During your self-imposed exile, they were the only other people you saw.

You grab a drink in a vacant bar called Babab's. Rundown with mismatched furniture and projected prints for wall art, it only has seven seats. The owner and establishment's namesake suspiciously asks for your name, but you politely shrug. He opens his mouth and knowingly nods with a gruff 'ah' but doesn't comment. The man is part of a humanoid species, but his curling tusks leave you imagining a boar in a stained apron.

"Heard it's hard on the hill," he says, more as an observation and with little sympathy.

"It's not my scene," you admit. Your eyes don't linger on him but on your drink. It tastes like highly fermented lychee, which you can deal with for the moment. "At all."

"I know a few stories about your childhood. I'm sure they're more myths but –" He's quiet for a moment and then tops off your drink. "Guess we're all feeling a little displaced these days."

"Guess so."

"You want something stronger?"

For no real reason, he tells you about your family and his home planet, and only there do you find yourself touching the planet's crust.

Dinner is over when you return from venturing. You want to tell Shiro about the bar you visited, but he's nowhere to be found. Unfortunately, you don't see him again until you're scheduled to meet for the Black Garden, and by then, you're distracted by other meetings and a set of glimmering nerves.

Shiro is waiting for you in the Black Wing's central lounge, reading his tablet at light speed. You catch him in the roll his eyes and close a letter with a raspberry. That is the side of him you love. He makes flippant annoyance endearing, and his impatience slips out with such defined a humanness you want to kiss him for it. Though you're one to talk, you've always hated how much he contains himself. It's gotten worse since you left, too, and it unnerves you how inaccessible he is. The only person he's loose with is his son, and you have theories as to why.

Ryou expects nothing but his love. It's that simple.

"Hey," you say, lifting your palm and waiting.

Shiro knows the gesture well. After all, he was the one who taught it to you.

He smacks his palm against yours with a friendly clap and pulls you toward his chest. Your hand lands between his shoulder blades as soon as his smooths up your spine. With his hand hidden by both of your bodies, he swipes his thumb along your knuckles.

You let him go. "That hug was warm. Who pissed you off, Your Highness?"

"Everyone," Shiro says, expression dropping even more. He sighs and slings an arm around your shoulders, guiding you toward one of the Black Wing's side doors. "Ready for your field trip?"

"Yes, sir," you say.

He digs his knuckles into your crown and twists. "That was creepy six years ago, and it's creepy now."

"Does it top when I said you were like a brother to me?"

Shiro guiltily tosses a look to the floor. "We were figuring things out. That was different and… not weird..."

"Tell me when we're not figuring it out," you say but rapidly change the subject. "So where exactly is this thing? I tried locating it on the blueprints, but I couldn't find it."

Shiro shrugs and lifts a hand, far too aloof. "It's on the other end of a labyrinth."

You follow him into an elevator. "You're kidding."

"Have I ever had a sense of humor?"

Located on a floor only accessible by Shiro's bionic hand, the Black Wing labyrinth is a goliath with security measures that dwarf the Blade of Marmora.

With sleek black walls that disappear into an even darker ceiling, there is no light aside from the runner lights that glow at the whim of Shiro's passing feet. You follow close behind him and mentally note every twist and turn, but you realize your rookie mistake much too late. The maze isn't fixated architecture. It's a part of an elaborate algorithm likely crafted by Shiro himself, and he's mentally running complex coding. Between Matt, Hunk, and Pidge, genius is rarely attributed to Shiro. Even you tend to overlook his profound intellect, but he is a force on his own.

"People could die in here," you say.

"No one has yet," he answers, too cheeky considering the implication. "To make it this far, they would have to breach Black Wing security, reroute the private corridor's sensors, find the hidden panel to the maze's entry point, replicate my DNA, and then both learn the customized course-plotting system and parse it with a zero error margin. The only other person in Balmera Palace capable of reaching the maze's end is Matt."

"Did you have the flowers carved from diamond that shoots death rays, too?"

Shiro offers you a sly look. "A lot of people want me dead. If I'm going to let down my guard, then I have to know I'm safe. Anyway, we both know diamonds are worthless off Earth."

"We've been walking for a while," you observe and touch a wall. It's as warm as your body. You think you feel a pulse. "Unless this is an endless circle, there's no way we're still on palace grounds."

"We're not, but it's not as simple as walking down an underground tunnel. These walls are charged utilizing the same energy I use to shift through space and reshape time. If you want a full lecture, then talk to Matt, but by pacing ourselves, our molecules are triggering a rift that'll open on the other side of New Altea."

The implication alone short circuits your basic understanding of human limitations, but alternate realities exist, so your existentialism is a dry breeze.

"You can transport other people," you say, piecing together the sheer enormity. "Haggar studied quintessence ten-thousand years and the closest she got was suspending Zarkon in a secondary plane."

Shiro, infuriatingly modest, shrugs. "It's useless if you're not looking for power. The Green Wing regularly holds conferences to discuss its humanitarian potential."

"That's a hell of a human feat."

"I'd hardly call myself wholly human."

He blindsides you with that comment.

It's a conversation you thought came to pass before you left New Altea. Your heart reaches to correct him, but you're not given the chance to hash out even Shiro's most basic feelings.

Shiro stops in front of you.

You're at a dead end.

Searching your surroundings, you fall in line beside him and press a hand to his lower back. Shiro thoughtlessly kisses your temple and ignites his bionic limb, firmly planting its palm against the smooth surface. For a long breath, nothing happens, but Shiro grits his teeth and heavily shoves forward. Shrill pink noise rips back your ears, and illuminated lines burst from beneath Shiro's hand. The lines create geometric webbing that disappears into the above nothingness and flood the corridor with a pink neon light.

Shiro lowers his arm when the wall is entirely covered. He blows his bangs off his forehead and neutralizes his hand, promptly crossing his arms and leaning back on a foot to inspect his work. You glance at him in awe and flit your stare back to the wall in hopes of deciphering the line's mathematics, but your shoulders start instead.

It's gone.

As much as you want to joke about Shiro's love for vanishing acts, your morbid humor is whisked away by the landscape strewn in front of you.

When you stepped into the labyrinth, it was midday, but here the suns are setting and casting a golden haze. Glowing streams muddle the violet foliage lining a narrow path walled off by black, stick-thin trees. The trees create an entry point that opens onto a chaotically overgrown landscape obscured by dark greens and purples.

Shiro steps forward.

You walk alongside him, but it isn't long before your eyes take in the garden's focal point.

"Quite the statement piece for a private garden."

It's a statue, but it's also more than that. Twice the size of yours, Shiro's sculpture is embraced by a black weeping willow's trunk, and the bark snakes from its wide pedestal to its throat. The tree's curtain is snarled like clumsy braids, and it sporadically drapes from incongruent offshoots that give it a deformed aesthetic.

"The artist made it twice the size I requested," Shiro says, evidently still miffed by this. It makes sense. He's never been one for grandstanding. "I put it to good use."

"Caustic," you say.

The Black Garden is the smallest by far.

Riddled with unnatural shadows comparable to a permanent solar eclipse, the twisted weeping willow's curtain can't sway without taunting the corners of your eyes. It induces anxiety, causing your ears to shift in opposite directions. Your Galra instincts peel back the black waterfall's roar in search of blanketed noises. The animal paranoia distorts your breathing, but try as you might, you can't calm yourself. This is Shiro's safe place, even an escape for meditation, but it is point-blank bizarre and nothing like the Red Garden's conventional tone.

You expected Shiro's garden to emulate Earth.

"I'm not seeing walls. How is this place secured?"

"Cloaking. It's invisible even to the Marmora. There are colossal man-eaters lining the exterior, but those wouldn't do much against a standard ship's lasers. Call it beast maintenance."

What few flowers are planted occasionally rattle on their own. The shaking startles you, but you sober yourself when Shiro doesn't pay them any mind. You notice a trend in their blossoms. Whether or not they're the same species, you don't know, but they're all circular. The ones that stick out the most have thick middles and remind you of bubbling pancakes. If you stare at them too long, they appear to ooze from themselves like dripping paint, but when you blink, they return to perfect circles.

You hear whispering and turn over a shoulder. "Are we alone?"

"Listen closer," Shiro says, placing a hand on your shoulder. He urges you forward. "It's impossible for anyone else to be here right now."

Following the chatter, you approach the edge of a tangled flower patch. The sound rises from it like singing cicadas, but you still believe that if you listen close enough, you might hear a full conversation.

This is the only patch that doesn't have circular blossoms, and you crouch down to inspect. They're clustered together, and at a glance, remind you of twitching hairy spiders, crumbled in on themselves after being swatted to death. One by one, as if inviting you to listen, they unfurl their stick legs and display purple bioluminescent gems.

"Don't touch them," Shiro passively says. "It'll grab you, pull you in, and then the others will assist in rapidly digesting you. After you come here a few times, they'll stop hissing, but for now, you're prey."

How this is comforting to Shiro, you don't know.

"This place is morbid," you say, blunt in the face of what you think could very well be the embodiment of someone's mental break.

He sighs. The observation apparently makes him weary.

"It's modeled after the one place the Galra let me go other than my prison cell or the arena. On their main ship, there was a courtyard I earned the right to spend my free time in after I was named Champion. I never forgot how the place made me feel. Calm. It was calm."

You rise to your feet and curl your fingers around his wrist. The flowers, realizing they've been foiled, snap shut and shriek. "You never told me about that."

"Wasn't overwhelmed enough to want to think about it, honestly."

"But now you are."

"They are two very different types of overwhelmed."

"Of equal measure."

Letting go of his wrist, you grab his shoulder and turn him toward you. Your fingertips skim his cheekbones and slide up his face. They disappear into wavy white locks and guide his head down until his forehead touches yours. The contact makes you both sigh, and you lightly kiss his mouth, enraged with yourself. Considering how disgusting you are, you're surprised he doesn't retract, repulsed by what you've done.

You did this to him.

"I'm sorry," you whisper, words unstable. "God, Shiro. I'm so sorry."

"Keith, I didn't take you here to make you feel bad," he says, but the syllables unfurl too fast, breaking. Shiro recovers and even manages to smile. "I took you here because I trust you. Imagine what the IAPP would think if they knew this traditional Galra sanctuary brings me peace of mind."

"I'm Galra," you whisper, mournful. " _I am Galra_."

"You don't embody traditions of an empire that promoted mass genocide. There are some cultural nuances we have to let go of on the basis of the Galra Empire, not the individual."

Kissing him again, you wrap your arms around his neck and clear your head. Shiro's mouth is hot and cavernous like drinking deep from a pool of magma. It's the first time you two have been alone solely to be alone together, and this dawns on you with an emotional swarm. It strips you bare, but it's Shiro who begins to walk you back.

You end the kiss. "I want you to be happy."

"I want you to be happy, too," he says.

This time, Shiro kisses you.

He's getting better about it.

"I hate not being able to be with you whenever I want," he murmurs, brushing his nose against yours and managing to change the tone to something much lighter.

You trust him not to walk you into a ditch, but there's the intrusive thought he might toss you into the spider patch and rid himself of you for good.

"Stay in my room," you offer. "Even if it's one night a week. That bed was designed for a reason. Might as well get some use out of it, and uh – don't act like I didn't notice how soft the mattress is. Not really my preference. You knew that when you let those plans roll through."

His lips ghost across your forehead, but he doesn't acknowledge the joke. "We buried that reason, Keith. The room is yours to use. I can order a better mattress for you tomorrow."

You're tired of him putting your heart on ice.

This is excruciating in ways you could have never anticipated. Whatever possible family life you two once tiptoed around is ash. Years ago, you wanted different things and catered to one another with a glaring 'maybe someday,' but now, you're older. Having a family is terrifying but maybe not as impossible as you once thought. Even so, you're suddenly too aware any family you make won't be his. While you were busy boiling your blood with Lance and spilling criminal guts, you managed to overlook a conclusion.

The worst part is you know how Shiro computes dire situations. This was the first thing he considered when you suggested the worst, and you know this because afterward, Allura came to him like cake.

Another loss. Another ignorant loss. You hate Voltron. You hate everything it's done to you, and while it saved the universe, it stole yours.

"Keith," he murmurs, apologetic and much too soft.

"It's cool," you say and press a palm to your temple. "That was kind of a bold suggestion."

You couldn't be more of an idiot if you tried.

Shiro miserably reads your expression, knowing you're dodging flying wreckage. He thinks better than to say anything as you mourn, but he cups your face.

_I wanted it, too_ _._

_Don't make it worse._

He can fuck you, but he's not yours. He can love you, but he's not yours. He can spend every single day with you and rule the universe by your side, but he's not yours, and he will never make more with you.

You did this, but to protect your heart, you do what you do best and tell yourself it's not fair. You were twenty-two. You were being a martyr. If someone asked you to let a twenty-two-year-old save the known universe and plan its future, then you would perspire enough to water Earth.

As you've trained yourself to be, you try to be understanding. Things are as they are, and there's nothing you can do to better the situation. Standing in this garden, kissing him like he's yours, is the relationship's zenith.

"Stop looking at me like that. I hate it when you look at me like you watched someone kick a dog." Your words are thick as custard, but it's the best you can do. "Kiss me or something."

"You didn't think we –"

"I don't think," you whisper, matter-of-fact. "I never think."

"I love you," he promises in a land without promise. "I do."

Somehow, that makes it a little more tolerable.

Shiro kisses you again in time for your lower back to meet a decorative stone slab. He brushes back your bangs, and to signal an invitation, you slip a hand up his chest and open your mouth. Shiro is quick on the uptake, palms climbing both sides of your ribcage. You lift both arms and rush fingers through his hair, tightening your grip.

He sucks your bottom lip, pulling off with a pop. "We don't have to do this right now."

You lean in for more, able to see by his eyes that he's love drunk. "Stop being polite."

Encouraging him, you iterate his name through a moan. Shiro reads the message, arching an eyebrow and wearing a sharp stare that scrapes you raw. He shoves your jacket down your shoulders, revealing a sleeveless turtleneck he reaches behind to unzip. You strip the remainder of the shirt and manage to keep your lips fused the entire time, tongue reacquainting itself with his commanding pace.

"Turn around," he says.

The order ignites a fever.

You quirk an eyebrow. "Yeah?"

"Now."

Not needing to be told twice, you turn and plant your hands on the dark stone. Shiro sweeps his palms from your hips to the smallest point of your waist.

"Nice flowers," you say, leaning over.

He chuckles against his will. "It's my favorite view."

Shiro's lips press to the curve of your neck. He rolls his lips, fervently kissing before digging his teeth into the hot skin. Your breathing hitches and you sink over the support beneath you, taking him with in the process. Shiro sucks back until he creates an angry bruise and detaches.

"Shiro –" You slide a hand between your thighs and knead. "Shiro…"

Shiro breaks.

His hands dive for the front of your black pants, opening them with ease. Your light breathing spikes, and you eagerly reach behind yourself to help him shove them and down your thighs. Kicking off boots and stepping out of legwear, you're barely done stripping when Shiro's flesh hand slips between your thighs.

"It'll always amaze me how easy it is to get you wet," he murmurs into your ear.

"Keep touching," you beg. "God, I love it when you touch me."

Shiro's fingers find two sensitive nodules on your folds. He strokes them with enough pressure to begin tangling your insides into a tight knot. You've never been quiet during sex, but he's a secret, so you think to be hushed, suffering for it. Shiro notices and pets harder, the glowing sludge making it easy for him to slip back and forth along your cunt.

Contemplatively humming, Shiro strokes back and sets his thumb along your other hole, teasing.

You suck back a terse breath.

"Like that?" he asks.

Already, your cunt is scorching. Hissing through your teeth, you groan so hard it sounds like a rage sob.

Shiro does it again, but this time he finds a third nodule and presses.

You yell his name in gratitude, but he doesn't cover your mouth. There's no need to.

Shiro's palm rubs faster against your labia and your claws scramble for the rock's edge. You're panting, desperate for the finality he's been denying you.

"Fuck me here. Now, Shiro.  _Now_."

Shiro hastily drops his hands, but you don't move, not even to look over your shoulder and watch him strip. His IAPP uniform unzips, releasing air as it unsticks itself from his flesh, and you know the distinct noise that's his suit sleeves smacking against his thighs. Your cunt flares with a bombinating pulse, and you reach between your thighs to massage the ache, putting on a show for Shiro to encourage his speed.

He goes still, evidently watching your fingers slip inside that deplorable hole. Glowing gel accumulates in abundance, and the warm consistency reminds you of the honey Allura showed you. Thick and perversely viscous, it lazily cascades to the garden floor like syrup. You pump your fingers faster, madly gasping.

"Move your hand, Keith."

You do as told and bring the arm forward. It's saturated. "Don't make me wait."

He shushes you and dips a finger inside. Your hips jerk back against the digit and sheath him to the knuckle, but it's not enough. He knew it wouldn't be enough.

Shiro adds a second finger, then a third, and begins prying you open. To steady your wiggling, he commandingly grabs you by the neck. Your ears pathetically whip back.

"Mount me," you demand, claws creating white lines in the rock.

Shiro tightens his grip to assert himself. He still knows how to fuck a Galra, and you wonder how many times he's fantasized about this.

You spread your legs wider, trying to tempt him. He adds a fourth finger to your sloppy cunt, and your eyes roll back like he sank his cock.

"I could suckle that pretty cunt and make you drop every last tentacle. Would you like that, baby? Having them burst out of you and squirm until I fuck them back inside? I still remember the first time it happened in Black. You wouldn't stop coming until I drenched them in cum."

You sink onto your elbows, trembling and trying to fuck his fist.

"I've waited so long, Shiro." You bounce your ass even harder, rocketing your hips. "Don't make me wait."

"Show me how much you need it first, Keith. Is this why you've been talking to Sendak? Are you hoping he'll make you feel as good as I can?" Shiro wrenches his fingers free. He's never jealous, and you want to slice off your hands for savoring this rare wickedness. You want him to want every inch of you and hate those who touch you. "Because trust me, Keith –" His cock brushes your folds, and your tentacles wrestle inside, stirred awake. You snarl and offer him a distinct mating writhe. "– no one is going to fuck you the way I do."

"Shiro, I won't beg. I won't –  _fuck_!"

Shiro thrusts, and you instantly shatter, falling into euphoria and yelling. He pulls out without missing a beat, catching sensitive walls with his cock's ridges, and fucks forward again. The intrusion knocks your breath like a backhand to your solar plexus, and your endless attempts to swallow air frosts your vision.

"Takashi," you hoarsely whisper, mouth smearing across the stone. You jolt as the squirming inside your navel becomes unbearable. Your slam both of your hands on the edge you're bent over. "Oh my God –"

Swollen, needy tentacles unfurl behind your pelvic wall and fall with an ungodly plummet. You shout Shiro's name and spread your thighs on instinct. They rustle faster, collecting themselves, and they experimentally press against your belly wall. Eventually, they find the proper direction and barrel down your canal.

On their way, several encircle Shiro's thrusting cock, but the rest seek air. They force you open in a way that makes you drool like a drugged animal.

"Keith," Shiro warns, even though he knows there's nothing you can do.

The tentacles around Shiro's cock tighten, restricting and pumping to encourage him to fuck harder.

"Keith," Shiro murmurs again, dropping his head to your shoulder. He doesn't stop his hips and the tentacles ring his thighs and tug him. "Baby, we're not –"

_Baby._

He's trying to murder you.

More peek outside your cunt, waggling their tips in search of Shiro, Shiro, Shiro. The stretch makes your mouth gape wide. Cock and tentacles are too much at once, but the stuffing triggers your walls to spasm.

You groan, shoulders rolling back. "Shiro, do what you want. It'll feel good. You'll feel good. We have cryopods, baby. Fucking ruin me."

More slick pours from your womb, and you cramp, hissing from a pain that inverts into bliss.

He makes you stop waiting, and with vicious snaps forward, ruins you for anyone else all over again. Your trembling fingers lock into your hair as you take him in full, choking on his name like maybe that will anchor you. The last time you were this wholly fucked the entity wasn't human, but this is still different. The emotional weight has overwhelming sensations creeping through your nervous system, and you don't think you can take it.

You urgently bring your leg onto the rock slate and press your forehead against the surface, bracing yourself against his fucking. You're not the only one enjoying yourself, though. Shiro's husky breathing is tinged with its own submission. Every time he says your name it's like he's using the world's most powerful spell.

When your tentacles loosen mid-fucking, Shiro catches your jaw and turns you into a kiss that's more like swapping spit and licking tongues. He suddenly smiles, so sure of himself. "They've stopped."

"Cocky," you breathlessly murmur and shamelessly lap at his tongue. Shiro sucks yours in return. "Should I get used to it? Think you can always fuck them into submission for me every time?"

"Oh yeah."

He slips both of his hands on top of yours and laces fingers, squeezing as he returns to his previous pace. As much as you want to make him come first, Shiro's resilience and powerful body doesn't lend you a prayer. His cock is deep-seated when your tentacles realize how close you are, and they return to their punishing writhing. Shiro reaches around to help pet your cunt, and the tentacles become distracted.

They eagerly slide around his wrist instead.

Knowing what it'll do to you, Shiro strokes one of the thickest tentacles like a cock. You scream his name, falling into indecipherable pleading, and when he rubs harder, the appendage secretes black ink. Trembling, it affectionately slithers around Shiro's wrist as you continue crying out and chasing an oncoming crash.

God, you're going to  _come_.

"Takashi!" you shout, the graveled desperation leaking from between your lips. "Baby, baby –"

You're coming and can only hear his heaving breaths and the heartbeat banging inside your skull. A sweltering hot spring fills your navel, and it gushes into your quivering cunt. Hot gelatin spills from between your thighs, drenching yours and Shiro's legs. You gasp at not only the immolating feeling but the sheer quantity. Fortunately, you don't have the attention span to care when your limbs are sizzling with prickly numbness.

Shiro soothingly grabs your thick bicep. "I didn't know it was that time –"

"Don't talk about it!" you snap, breaths ragged as you writhe with an arched back. Tears collect along your eyes, but you can't figure out why.

Shiro knows better than to push the envelope or dare stop. The less of an ordeal, the better. He soothingly pets the back of your damp head instead and fucks you until his knees buckle and he rushes you with cum.

It's pedestrian. The time is too good, but you can't stop yourself.

"I love you," you pathetically whisper.

"I love you."

Shiro's forehead slides down your back as he catches his breath, hands gliding up your thighs at the same time. He returns himself to your neck, and you unsteadily reach for the back of his head, drawing him closer.

He fucks you again, and you both miss meetings. He remembers to come on your cunt, not inside it, and you miss another.

When he claims he's spent, you bend Shiro over the same rock and eat him out, dragging your tongue over his tight ring and thrusting inward, shamelessly tongue-fucking him. You time his crass words, his harsh breathing. Shiro's balls are soon heavy on your tongue, and you repeatedly lick from the seam to his sloppy hole. Shiro, shaking, tells you no one's done this for him since you left.

It was supposed to be fast, but by the time you're done, you're both naked on the ground and caked in fluids.

"Oh my God," you murmur, head tilted back on the grass as you watch the night sky. Your legs are lazily draped over Shiro's hips, and you're still grappling for air. Lightheaded and body humming, you barely notice Shiro use his bionic hand to light a joint gifted by Lance. The familiar cedar perfume blankets you in a dense navy cloud, and you inhale fumes until your lungs are ready to pop. "That was so overdue."

"Yeah," Shiro agrees through his stupor. His thighs are twitching, but it's the most relaxed you've seen him since you arrived. He exhales smoke once more and passes.

As you're taking a drag, Shiro's hips jerk and he hisses between closed teeth. It's because your tentacles have his cock locked inside you. They're milking him with tender strokes, and the sensation is overstimulating.

"Sorry," you absently murmur. You're not, and you smile as you inhale smoke, rocking your hips with the tentacles.

"Stop trying to kill me," he says, eyes narrowing with a suspicious smile.

You don't stop, cocking an eyebrow in a challenge as smoke lazily swirls free from your nostrils. "I'm just moving it along faster."

Shiro ruthlessly pounds forward. Every muscle in your hands grow stiff as you throw back your head and shout. Then in agony, you manage a laugh. "Motherfucker!"

He shares the amusement and creates a tight rhythm. It rocks your body enough to constitute as fucking, and your head remains tossed back while you suck another hazy plume into your lungs.

It's only when there's nothing left inside Shiro do the tentacles call it a day and slither back inside their home. Shiro rolls off your stained body, but he's not done spending his time on you. He buries his face in the back of your neck as you two finish the soothing herb, and your battering worries take a long solitary nap.

"I like the Black Garden," you groggily murmur, barely lucid.

"Me too," he answers, cheek settled on the makeshift pillow that's his arm. The gruffness lets you know he's on the brink of sleep. "Tell me about your life as a bounty hunter. I know there are more stories."

Listlessness seeps into your thick voice, but you don't mind talking. "Did I ever tell you about the time I had to seduce slime strippers?"

Shiro is already laughing. "Where was this?"

You turn to face him. "Of all places, it was Vogrigri."

Without explanation, Shiro's expression simmers down to one of deep worry. He looks you in the eye and battles something inside himself only to inhale and reluctantly make a truce.

"Keith, what do you know about Lance's affiliation with Vogriri?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is Lance chapter. That boy is gonna spill everyone's milk, but like, while on a private island.
> 
> If you like reading about fanfiction author's whining their way into their next update, then I suggest following me on Twitter @leecawrites where I post pictures of my dog and retweet a lot of sheith art. Sometimes I get too excited about alternate realities, but if you're into Voltron, then I assume that's your thing anyway.
> 
> Thanks for reading. Don't be afraid to drop a comment below. I've said it before, but those comments can sometimes steer the whole story.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't been here for the past seven chapters, then know that none of these characters are reliable narrators. Some of them are better at hiding things and ignoring details than others. A lot of details won't add up and timelines don't seem to link together all that well. This is important. I'll probably reveal the full timeline at the end of this story but only at the very end. Until then, keep speculating. I'm having a great time reading and considering opinions.
> 
> I repeat. Trust no bitch here.
> 
> Also, shout out to @phospenumbra on Tumblr and Twitter for doing the awesome translations for me. Spanish is her first language, so it felt good being able to consult someone on that instead of railing Google translate like a fool.

You're twenty-seven years old, and your toes are wriggling in black sand some hundred thousand lightyears away from Earth. You're twenty-seven years old, and in front of you is a virgin island and behind you is Balmera Palace, breathing down your neck. The palace's insides were constructed by the unfortunate dead, mookish baby-kissers, and most importantly, a pantheon of crucified hearts. Because you  _must_  shine, you're adamant about avoiding the palace's far-reaching shadow, but it's not easy.

Your name is Lance, and your Blue Paladin armor made you a celebrity. Actually, no. Celebrity is a human simplification. You're a bipedal alien wandering divinity's promontory. Whether or not the armor literally clings to your shins and biceps doesn't matter anymore. The breastplate has stubborn emotional adhesive. In fact, there's not enough hot water in the known universe to soak the bitch from your heart.

Your name is Lance, and you want to break your teeth on the shells you collected. Not because you're losing your mind, but because it's easier to inflict pain on yourself than hunt down Keith.

If you can even call him Keith now. He did sign the order as Commander Keith.

"Commander," you say, tasting the word. It's all bile.

If Keith is a commander, then there's no telling what he was when Shiro's bedeviled clone was terrorizing the team. You used to love to hate how Keith fumbled through leadership, leaving the team threadbare and unimpressed, but now you miss that Keith. At least back then he had an honest focus. Real desires.

The second Keith started to see the big picture in the IAPP he lost whatever part of that Keith was left. More specifically, the second Keith figured out Shiro's leadership formula, even after implying he could lead without it, the inspirational Keith who killed Lotor as a Greek demigod vanished.

"Commander Keith."

Floating above your blue watch is a holographic document you forgot to close.

It's a combat plan, and its implications are bedazzled well. If someone scanned it in passing, they'd assume it was a precautionary measure. Just in case the rebels get out of hand. Nothing's set in stone. Unfortunately for them, you're not someone. You're Lance. You know Keith's dialogue too well.

It's a war order.

The  _Red Wing_  signed the order, but there's no mistaking who conceived the plan. It's a headless scheme, but it means well. Even so, the intention is buried beneath trademarked recklessness. You don't mean to be a  _total_  bitch, but that stops being cute after nineteen or – you know – after your Black Paladin Daddy can't bail you the fuck out unless he wants to make his wife suspicious. Rightfully suspicious, you think.

Most of the time, you respect Keith. You even admire him if the weather is right. But it's a stormy Tuesday, and it would've been nice to go a decade without war.

The Blue Garden beach isn't bringing you solace, which means you need to complain to  _someone_. Keith was your go-to, but since he's the problem, you have to find a new outlet.

"Bitch," you whisper and close the document. "What a bitch of a situation."

There are several things about this war order that could bite your ass, but you're not in the place to think about your son or Vogriri. You can only vent about surface-level issues, especially if you're going to seek counsel with the one person on New Altea who isn't linked to your horror show with Commander Keith.

You leave behind pink, sloppy waves for rickety stairs winding a gaping cenote. Wild blue flowers shaped like drooping bells rest at the top, surrounding your statute. You give the sculpture two finger guns and prod down a sandy path leading to the palace. When you first saw the Blue Garden with Allura, you were underwhelmed, but she explained that was the point. The flowers and statue sit on a squatty mound that masks the blue quartz sinkhole and Moscato lagoon. The ocean, she said, is the garden.

It makes sense. You are the guardian of water. If you're up for the challenge, then you can will tides, spread seas like Moses. Unless you're bored, there isn't much reason to utilize that ability.

You prefer to leave the ocean be. Otherwise, the universe stops feeling too big, wonderful.

* * *

Using the Pidge Method, you disengage the IAPP watch and jog through the back halls toward the Yellow Garden's agricultural lab. The garden is sprawling farmland where Hunk and his team oversee crop rotation, levitating gardens, irrigation systems and genetic modification you can't pretend to understand even when you want to feel smart. The Yellow Garden is where Ryou's human produce is grown, and it's where you raise your hinter bush crops. Hunk taught you how to cross different strains.

The garden is the smallest player in the Yellow Wing.

The Yellow Wing is both the largest wing and the wing that houses and feeds all Balmera Palace workers. It's a town more so than a wing, and you forget it's a part of the palace and not an Alforis district.

When you key your way into the atrium lab with your palm, Hunk is five stories above you. The glass filters the suns and their individual colors onto interloping vines, trees that dwarf redwoods and alien fruit as big as basketballs. The light fills the space with technicolor rays, and for a tick, taunts your eyes.

To reach the floating garden Hunk is on, you climb slim, levitating steps with a fall that could kill you. They might be surrounded by invisible guardrails, but the illusion doesn't make you less anxious.

"This place is making my balls sweat," you say, meaning the humidity.

There's a holographic screen suspended in front of Hunk's face. His hands are sullied by nutrient-rich soil, and he's writing with a pen on a thick, leather-bound ledger. He leaves behind ink and dirt smears.

"You know," Hunk says, still reading the screen and writing. "I had this strange, psychic feeling you'd show up here now that Keith and Shiro are thick as thieves again."

You take the hit with grace. You even tilt back your head and pretend the green canopy flanked across the ceiling is interesting. "I doubt they'd wanna hear me call them idiots to their faces."

Hunk inspects his nails and uses his pen to wheedle out dirt granules. "Wants and needs are two totally different beasts."

"They need a swift kick in the ass."

"You wouldn't be wrong." Hunk pauses to think and laughs. He shakes his head. "Ah, man. It seems like the whole IAPP is built on the wants we couldn't have during the war. Not gonna lie. It's been nice to pretend for a hot minute, but I've seen the cracks  _everywhere_ lately. Not sure what to do about it since they keep me pretty busy in here, so – as it goes – "

"If you're like some people, then you see the cracks and start a war."

Hunk covers his ears and meditatively hums. "I'm deluding myself here. I'm telling myself there won't be another chunk of our lives dedicated to killing people."

"Better look it in the bullseye, pal. That combat plan has Commander Keith written all over it, which means heads are gonna roll when it becomes a war order. Allura's mantra is peace before death. She'd never swing this, and we know the only person with more leverage over Shiro than Allura is Keith."

Dropping his hands, Hunk deflates and slides his screen to a new data log. He returns to his notes, wearing a lopsided frown. Only after he's finished a chart does he continue to speak.

"It's that ugly spot Keith's in with the Marmora. If Keith can get into the lions, then our runaway ex-boyfriend can clear his name and repair the IAPP and Marmora relationship. He has to get the black box information from Shiro's lion if the Blades are ever going to respect this place again."

You cast your gaze to the side. "Keith was trying to keep that under wraps. How – "

"Pidge," Hunk explains and shrugs, pushing back sweat-matted bangs. "We work together a lot. Talking shit is our favorite pastime."

Planting a hand on your hip, you cock it to the side. "Marmora panic or not, man. A combat plan should always be a team discussion. If we have to fight, then we should have a say in it."

"I'm not a fan of how the wings don't have good checks and balances, but I do miss the  _idea_  of piloting together. We were forced to talk to each other. Dinners really don't do it for us."

"Quintessence addiction," you say. "I don't want to go there again."

Hunk looks up from his work. "That device in your chest that ticks? The blood pumper thingy? Yeah. It runs on quintessence. Just like Shiro's arm, Keith's leg, Pidge's eye, and my jaw."

"You know what I mean."

Ambling toward the garden's edge, you watch the workers collect data in the field below. You can't breathe, but you're not sure if it's because of the combat plan or the humidity. Your lungs are too wet. They're sticking together. With a grunt, you massage both sides of your throat and voice thoughts.

"Splitting up the way we did sometimes feels like the biggest mistake we ever made."

"I think we needed the space. The issue now – " Hunk pauses to finalize a thought, his scribbling furious. " – is closing that space. I don't know what to say to Keith or Shiro anymore. Didn't know what to say back in the day, but at least we could hold casual conversations. They're weird now, or maybe this has always been Shiro's personality. After all, the dude was semi-possessed most of our time piloting."

"Keith was always like this," you murmur and squat beside a blueberry bush. You prod at a berry and decide talking to your ex-husband about your ex-boyfriend might not be the best move. Pidge would be a more objective voice, but she's been cold toward you. "Keith is in there somewhere but now with something to prove. He never does well when he feels like he has to live up to an expectation."

"If Keith was trying to live up to something, then don't you think he would've kept the lion vault closed and not summoned us back to the hangar?"

"I didn't say he meets the expectation. He rides against it."

– or rides the human embodiment of the expectation. Naked.

Hunk closes his screen and turns toward you, hands planted on his back. He's in a white and green sleeveless turtleneck, which has become fashionable due to Keith's anti-chest sentiment. With his tattered black pants, it's a look. You admire his biceps for too long but blink through the accumulated vapor.

"Stop molesting my blueberries. Your fingers have foreign oil that could kill the variable." He narrows his eyes, and thinking, smiles. "You sound kinda mutinous right now."

"What's happening here is unsound. It feels like a power trip." You let your fingers sag between your knees and hang your head. You shout at grass. "I don't want us to end up looking like the bad guys!"

"Buddy, I sympathize, but we're always gonna look like the bad guys to someone."

Hunk's pragmatism makes you miss him, but you know the divorce, and subsequent relationship with Keith, has left the respect one-sided. You're unwilling to feel worse, so you push back the thought.

"War and inevitable bloodshed aside," he says, eyes sliding past you and to the farthest glass wall. It overlooks the ocean and your island. "I wanted to ask about how the house is coming along. You talk about it like you're six months pregnant. Better invite me to the baby shower. I'll cater for free."

"It's more like a pet than a baby," you say, letting your muscles relax with the topic change. You stand and nod toward the ocean view. "Let me buy you a drink. I'll tell you all about it."

Hunk arches an eyebrow. He's suspicious but could be more condescending. "I'll think about it. The last time we drank together I thought I'd never get the paint out of my pubic hair."

* * *

Returning to Voltron isn't ideal, but it strikes you like a homecoming. Whether or not you want to slip into armor that chafes your elbows and knees doesn't matter. You miss Blue. You miss wheeling across a starry backdrop and howling at every moon cluster you pass until the team shouts for you to  _stop it._

Keith is waiting with Shiro outside a hidden elevator located deep inside the Green Wing's belly. He's dressed in the navy bodysuit with a red jacket tied around his hips. The sleeves swing in front of his thighs as he playfully punches Shiro's bicep, and Shiro laughs at the impact, catching his fist at the fourth punch. He reels Keith close. As Keith is tugged, he smiles like he's about to dissolve into light.

He's in love, but when hasn't he loved Shiro? Keith's longing looks met by Shiro's patient gaze is a Voltron constant. Voltron as you know it wouldn't exist if Keith didn't love Shiro.

Shiro mouths words to Keith. Keith's tongue taps the back of his front teeth as he replies. The 'L' is heavy on his lips before his teeth rake his bottom lip to make a 'V.'

"You know," you say, interrupting them. Shiro throws down Keith's arm. Rather than look at you, Keith stares at Shiro, still. "You could've told us to meet here in person, Shiro, but I guess no politics at the dinner table is the magic seal for the Shirogane family. I get it. I do. Keep it together for the kid, but that email you sent was a little frigid, my man. Don't make me talk to the IAPP HR."

Shiro smiles, apologetic. "It's a bad look, but the entire Red Wing has been slammed. Sorry, Lance."

You look around the room. "Allura isn't here."

Keith pulls a shoulder forward. He faces the elevator and scrubs the back of his neck. Shiro watches his fingers dig into his skin. "She's meeting us by the rift."

"Boy, I never wanted to hear that word again," you say and swing your arms forward and back. "Cannot wait to start eating my daily Cheerios with a sprinkle of inevitable manslaughter."

"Our situation with the rebels is bad," Keith tells you. Shiro crosses his arms but says nothing, carefully watching you from the corner of his eye. "We're in a bad spot. The universe needs Voltron."

"Wouldn't know!" you say, chipper to drive him nuts.

"Lance," Shiro says. "It's not our fault Allura doesn't want you on the Red Wing floor."

He only hides behind Allura when it's convenient.

"I still think it's stupid we locked the lions up in the first place." Your shoulder thuds against the nearest wall. It's cold, sterile marble. "The old paladins knew the universe would always need Voltron. It wasn't Voltron that drove Zarkon nuts. It was Honerva's studies and her health. We made our lives difficult."

"That was before we stabilized my quintessence levels," Shiro says, effectively throwing himself under the bus to defend Keith. "We weren't sure how the poison would progress."

"Don't take this the wrong way, Shiro. I love you as Black Paladin and all, but we have Keith and Allura to fill in the blank spaces if you ever go under. There were other options."

Keith pivots to snap at you, and you step forward, prepared to come to blows.

Shiro slams a hand against Keith's chest, shoving him back. "Stop."

Keith grabs Shiro's hand and pushes it down with a hard exhale. He glances past your head, and his wrinkled nose and bared fangs relax. Hunk's bear call roars across the room, and Keith steps away to scrub his cheekbones, exasperated with himself in a way that seems confused. You reply to Hunk with dry cawing, eyes still fixed on Keith's private frustration.

_What's up with him?_

A hip bumps against yours. Pidge pats between your shoulder blades with a tepid expression. Though you don't want to, you look at her, longing for the friendship you once had. That's all you do lately. Yearn.

"Still doesn't feel like it's happening," Hunk says and drops an arm onto Keith's shoulder. Keith fondly side-eyes him with folded arms. "Team Voltron back at it again, but this time with better hair."

"Try not to look too happy about death and dying," Pidge teases and ribs Shiro. He slings an arm around her shoulders and tugs her close. "But yeah. We're back, except hotter."

You step forward and knock your knuckles against the elevator. "Open sesame, bitch."

Keith looks at Shiro, accusing. "You never changed his passcode."

Shiro lifts his palms face up and smiles. "As if I could even if I wanted to."

"Glad someone appreciates my charm," you say, stepping back.

The elevator pings and its seam emits white light. You crouch with two victory signs as the light scans the room, creating a small holographic image. After processing, it registers your identities and slides open.

"That never gets old," you say as pause by the door, admiring the 3D renders of everyone.

Inside the elevator are five color-coded slots. One at a time, each of you summon your bayard. Shiro's is the last to manifest, and he admires the horseshoe shape, turning it into his hands as if he forgot it's tactile and not a concept. Keith watches him, melancholy sweeping his face and blowing against you like winter.

"Okay, team," Shiro says. It's home. That authority is home. "On my count."

_one, two, three_

Together, united, the bayards slam into their designated slots. Shiro gestures with two fingers, and as a team, you twist your wrists, unlocking the five ports. When the elevator lurches, it fills you with a sensation second only to the first time Blue stood before you. There's a wonder to it. Piloting lions has become a distant dream you only let define you in theory. You disconnected from it to help your heart.

You've officially been in space without lions longer than you've been in space with them, and that feels wrong. Something about the fact is displaced, unfair.

You look around the chrome enclosure. The others are smiling, embarrassed by their uncontainable happiness. Keith rubs his mouth and laughs, soft and airy with disbelief hinged onto the noise. You and Keith exchange a stare that's night and day compared to him rearing back in anger. He blinks when he realizes you're sharing happiness, crosses his arms, and leans back against the wall.

Hunk raises a hand. "Anyone else here hype? Because I'm hype. I am deep breathing whatever vibe we've got going on in this elevator right now."

"Imagine all the technology and upgrades we can add to the lions," Pidge says. Her eyes flit from side to side. You know that expression. She's scheming. "We have to overhaul  _everything_."

Hunk floats his raised palm toward her. "Count me in, brother, the blood of my blood, compadre."

Pidge smacks his hand and hooks their fingers. They pound knuckles and cup their palms, jerking each other toward one another and bumping chests. She flashes pearly teeth. Hunk matches her smile.

"Team Punk back at it again," she says. "If they thought Voltron was strong before, then they have no idea what's coming to them."

Keith rears a corner of his mouth. "Don't overdo it. If the battle is too easy, then it's not fun."

You lift your hands to your head and make devil horns with two fingers. "Spoken like a true Galra."

He grins and mirrors your gesture, hissing at you.

"That's in poor taste," Shiro murmurs, eyes swung to the side. Keith stares him down and hisses, defiant as ever. You join him in the hissing. "Keith, Lance, you're almost thirty."

Hunk also enlists in horn wearing. "Are these horns or ears?"

Pidge follows suit and waves her fingers. "This feels like an interchangeable device. A nuanced pantomime."

"If they were ears, then wouldn't they be three fingers?" Shiro asks, serious. He lifts three fingers to both sides of his head and lets one fall forward. "Two feels too thin for ears."

Hunk chokes and flings both arms toward Shiro. "Shiro, have mercy! Cute! Cute man!"

You snort, but he's right. It's cute. "No harmful gender stereotypes on the elevator."

"Shiro –" Keith stares at him with fondness that knots your stomach.

You ruffle Keith's nearest ear. His expression falls into instinctual bliss, eyelids heavy. You try not to remember some of the raunchy roles he assumed in the bedroom.

_kitty, kitty, kitty_

"That's how we felt when we first saw you with ears," you say. "Except they didn't go away. Cat ear purgatory. There's no sweet release for us."

The elevator glides to a halt. It's slower than others in the palace, but that's to ensure its magnets don't distort the rift waiting beyond the first chamber. The door opens, and on the other side are five transparent capsules holding mannequins. Each is dressed in paladin armor but not the clunky armor you knew well.

"Matt and I may have upgraded the armor," Shiro explains, exiting the elevator.

Each set of armor has been individualized to better suit the intended wearer. The material is thinner, and there's a wider placement range for the blue that used to highlight the chunky, protective neck pieces.

"Sick," you whisper.

Your armor is a blue and white turtleneck with disconnected sleeves. The design is similar to your favorite formalwear brand, but it exposes several centimeters of midriff. More than ever, you're thankful you didn't neglect your ab workouts over the years. Might've witnessed an unholy cataclysm otherwise.

"Whoa," Keith says and ambles toward his armor with slow steps and crossed arms. "Not a uniform anymore."

Keith's armor is black and red, fashioned into his preferred high-neck style. The arms are attached, but the material beneath the thin breastplate is obscenely tight. Shiro's matches Keith's armor, but his is still black and white with black now the more prominent color. Even when you met them, they coordinated.

Shiro stands in front of his suit and plants both hands on his hips. "The helmets and under suits now line the skin as an invisible shield. It enables freer movement. We've also replaced visors with goggles."

Hunk snatches his yellow wraparound glasses from the glowing rack in the middle of the room. "More like wicked shades. Are these modeled after the bike glasses? I think I saw Matt working on these."

"Those were the first test run," Pidge explains. "They bike glasses are one step above the prototype."

You grab yours and deposit them on your nose. The world flashes candy blue but fades back to its proper colors. Whirling diagrams and atmospheric percentages appear on the right side of your vision.

Keith reaches for his. "It's going to look like we can breathe in space."

Hunk turns his attention to his armor and holds his chin, thoughtful. His armor top is a slim turtleneck like yours, but it's the only armor without sleeves. There are two armbands wired with miniature generators and shrinking storage for mechanical supplies. You discover they're heavier than they appear by some twenty pounds, but Hunk's arms were conditioned by his blaster and a maintained fitness regimen.

Among the four pairs of glasses is a single green circlet. Pidge sets it on her crown and her mechanical iris pulses soft green light. "We might have borrowed some technology from the Olkari, too."

Pidge's armor is the least like armor. It's a green and white bodysuit that integrates with her nerve endings, making it possible for her to interact with foreign technology. Her mind is a virus.

"Suit up," Shiro says and reaches for his shirt hem. "Matt's been waiting in the other room for a while."

You take a moment to appreciate the way Shiro's back muscles ripple beneath scar tissue. The scars were purple and thick when you last saw him change into paladin armor, but now they're blush, peachy.

The 'other room' is a mammoth empty space walled off by a glass panel and connected control room. Beyond the glass, the space doubles as a lift for the lions and perforation point for a rift that opens onto an isolated alternate reality. In front of the control console, Matt and Allura are standing, talking low among themselves. Allura is in her IAPP suit, not her armor. You join her at her side and nudge her ribs.

"You're not coming with us?" you ask, disappointed.

She greets you with a slight smile. "It's better if I don't. If something happens, then both rulers will be gone. It's not a risk we can take."

You step forward and try to look up through the glass. The ceiling is endless, disappearing into black nothing. "This really connects to the lion hangar?"

"That it does," Matt says, typing in code after code. "We've had to pretend it's brand new. Before it was labelled as unused space."

For years, rumors about where the lions are hidden have spread by gossip and red herrings. The general consensus is that they were either destroyed or spread across the universe. Each of you took a vow of silence on the matter. If the IAPP knew the door to the lions was beneath their feet, then nothing would be secure. People would treat it like a treasure hunt, pilfering and scheming to unlock them, take them.

Keith steps beside Allura. "You were the one who opened the rift. I feel like you should come with us."

"Don't worry about me, Keith."

"We're ready to go," Matt informs the room. "Slav was down here with me all morning for prep."

Shiro grimaces, reliving a memory. "Sorry for your loss."

As a team, you descend on a silver platform that takes you to the rift's two anchoring poles. They're clear and jut from the wall like water pipes. Shiro casually lifts two fingers to give Allura and Matt the go-ahead, and Allura assumes her place at a control panel much like the one she used to man the castle ship. Though there's an emergency method for accessing this rift, Allura's Altean alchemy is the quicker option.

Allura's blue magic funnels through clear tubes swirling along the surrounding walls like cold-white fossils. The magic spills into two guns attached to the wall behind you. They're aimed at the space between the poles. You should be more excited about seeing Blue, but you're too busy crossing yourself.

The guns charge, and Keith and Shiro boldly stare down where the rift will appear. Matt pulls the trigger and the room floods with a yellow light that carries energy hot enough to thin your nose hairs.

"Now those are fireworks," Pidge says, watching the fabric of reality split before her eyes. She looks for Matt's signal and engages her circlet. "On three, we need to sprint into the light."

"Isn't that what we're not supposed to do?" you joke, breathless. "Go into the light, I mean."

"Trust us," Pidge says. She smacks your back. "We've perfected this."

Keith pats his mechanical leg, which is glowing a warm blue through the fabric of his armor. "The quintessence in our bodies should protect us. Just don't stop walking."

"He's right," Shiro says. "Keep walking forward even if you think you can't."

"Ready?" Pidge asks everyone.

Hunk and you look at each other and mouth 'no.'

She counts down, and on three, the five of you sprint toward the towering light-tear that should be much more awe-inspiring than it is up close. You've learned this tends to be the case with reality versus science fiction. Holding your breath, your body passes through the star jelly, resisting. Automatically, your limbs become desperate lock up as the surrounding energy fights you, but you remember Shiro's advice and ignore the way your cells are vibrating and how your tongue wants to swim free from your mouth.

With your glasses, you try to pick up the makeup of your surroundings, but the scanners glitch and your communicator channel burns with static. On and on you run without daring to look at the others, but the amount of time it's taking to cross into the alternate reality is concerning. You've only taken this route once before, and you're pretty sure it didn't take half as long. Time isn't linear transportation, though.

There, finally. A door like a cave mouth.

The blinding gold light diffuses around the opening, and beyond it, a field of wildflowers spans acres upon acres of emerald rolling hills. You think you're going to enter the reality like a runner winning a marathon, but you tumble through like a drunk toddler, stumbling and barely catching yourself.

"There's the house," Keith says, panting. "Third hill back."

You drop to a knee, dripping sweat. "Humans aren't supposed to do that."

"Yeah," Hunk answers. He's on both knees beside Pidge who's on her side. "Humans probably aren't supposed to walk between realities like a god. I think that might qualify as challenging Mother Nature."

"You're a scientist!" Pidge snaps, talking into grass. "You don't believe in Mother Nature."

"I believe in order!"

Shiro is eerily okay. He strides toward the modest house Keith pointed out. It's more or less a bungalow or a distant, fancier cousin of the log cabin. Either way, it's rustic like a childhood storybook.

Along with the others, you pick yourself up and trail Shiro like a dying comet. The flowers end at the fence, and as soon as you step onto the care grass, the front door flies open. It's followed by silence.

"Sorry for not sending a message," Shiro says, smile sheepish. "This was a little last minute."

Shiro's clone stares at the five of you in bewilderment. Since you last saw Kuron, which was approximately seven years ago, he's grown out his hair. That's the only difference between him and the real Shiro, though. They're identical in a way that surpasses the indisputable strangeness that comes with twins that shared an egg. There's something perverse about the Shiro clone, but you can't overthink it. You learned that lesson after you daydreamed about them sucking face, and it was so traumatizing you couldn't look at either Shiro for weeks after the fact.

"Long time, no see," Kuron says.

"Long time, no see," Shiro repeats. "I think you can guess why we're here."

Kuron squares his shoulders. "Trouble on the other side. Trouble worth jumping through the hoops required to pull the lions out of storage."

"Rebels," Keith explains. "Galra sympathizers with at least one superweapon."

"Sounds hairy."

Keith stares at Kuron, temporarily searching his person before ripping his gaze aside. The Kuron and Keith situation is a forbidden zone. Even you have limits, and that horror story is better left under the rug.

The door to Kuron's house slides open again.

The first thing you spot is a woman's slender leg stepping out followed by the fine, fine, fine lady Altean named Romelle. Physically speaking, she might as well be an alternate reality Allura, but her personality is more radical, unhinged in a way that makes her Keith's soulmate. She's in a long skirt with a high slit and a top made of thick, wrapping material. On her hip is a toddler around Ryou's age. It's a little girl.

"Surreal," you murmur.

Hunk elbows you and nods in solidarity. "It's Ryou, but a girl."

"Paladins of Voltron," Romelle says, voice like a straight razor. When she speaks, her tenor gives you a thrill. You want her to step on your throat, spit on you. She's the type, too. You envy Kuron. "I expected many things when I saw the rift, but not the five of you together. I was told by the Empress herself you disbanded years ago."

"Disbanded!" you say. "That's the nice way of putting it."

"Lance," Shiro warns, snapping his gaze on you. After a drawn-out pause, he shifts his gaze back to Romelle who stares at you, picking you apart with her gaze. "Allura's been here then."

"She has," Romelle says and grabs one of her daughter's hands, swaying. You wait for her to elaborate, but she doesn't. The secrecy is meant to mock Shiro and maintain Allura's privacy. "Only a few times."

Kuron adds nothing. "The IAPP is doing well?"

"It's still a startup," Shiro says and exhales, shoulders falling. He recovers with a smile. "But it's growing and building traction. The timeline is where we expected it to be. I could have more to complain about."

You wonder how Shiro has the gall to lie to his clone and think he can get away with it. Kuron purses his lips, suspicious. He gestures at the field behind his home.

"They're where you left them. I have to hand it to you, Pidge, that cloaking device hasn't faltered even for a second. No one's suspected a thing."

She winks and gives him two thumbs up. "Past Pidge knew what she was doing."

You and the others stride through flowers toward the approximate location of the lions, and Shiro and Kuron catch up on their families, their worlds. Already you can feel the lions nearby. The quintessence radiates. It's like railing the glittery blue powder mined only on planet Lagleozuno. You habitually sniff back, and Keith does the same with a swift nose swipe. The bingers you two went on after cutting ties with the lions are a testament to human constitution. You two should have died twice over back then.

Then again, you fondly think of yourself and Keith as cockroaches. There's no reason you should be alive at this point. Between having your heart split in two and Keith's leg being chopped off, life is a celestial dark comedy.

Pidge throws out an arm, walling you off, and reaches into her bag with the other hand. She reveals a square remote no bigger than her palm. It's green with a touch screen that only has three options. Cloak, disengage, and a nondescript red button. The technology is suspiciously simple for her.

No glitz and bang here.

"Stop, or you'll run into Black." She mechanical eye brightens, and a touch keypad appears. "What was the code again? My first chemistry teacher in middle school? I don't remember. Uh – "

"Reassuring," Keith mutters, sighing and scratching an ear.

Pidge enters a code faster than a whip and points the remote ahead, arm entirely extended. Blue energy bubbles surge from the screen. She digs her heels into the slick grass, and when the power shoves her off balance, Keith sprints behind her and seizes her shoulders. The wind whips around them, and it breezes through your hair. An electric crack sputters from the bubble's edges, and you jog backward to keep your eyebrows from being singed. Hunk doesn't move but shields his face, trusting Pidge.

The first lion to drop its cloak is Yellow. She's as broad as you remember, and Hunk stands stunned, gazing up at his lion with his head tilted back. It's like he's looking at heaven. Blue is next and you crouch, letting your face drop into your hands as quintessence worms into your pores. You gnash teeth, want to hate Keith, but you're also relieved. For so long you wondered who and what you were supposed to be outside Voltron. Now you don't need to ask yourself that question.

You're the Blue Paladin.

Green's reveal earns a fist pump from Pidge, but it's Black and Red that make everyone unify their line of sight. Keith and Shiro regally stand beside one another, arms folded over their chests.

The day you parked the lions for what was supposed to be forever is as clear and cloudless as the blue above. Keith rage cried in Shiro's arms and murmured things about addiction, purpose. Keith signed the papers because it was the right thing to do, but that's Keith's life, isn't it? Signing it away.

"Idiot," you whisper to yourself. "You're a fucking idiot."

Shiro rubs the back of his neck. "How are we picking the Black Paladin this time? We could flip a coin."

It's supposed to be a joke, but Keith stares down Red. "No one is more qualified to pilot Black than you."

This startles Shiro. The meaningfulness makes you want to trip yourself into a ditch and promptly die. You fight a gag, but the Lord above is testing your will because Shiro looks at Keith like a new pair of cotton briefs.

"Thanks, Keith."

They eye-fuck each other, but like, with their hot and hard feelings.

Pidge's enchanted expression crashes. "I thought they outgrew this."

Hunk gestures broad with both arms, smiling and closing his eyes. "Why would they do that when we can suffer instead? What's Voltron without Shiro and Keith enthusiastically protecting each other's virtue? Nothing, I say."

"You look like you just accepted Jesus into your heart," Pidge says.

You stride to Blue. "If we have to deal with Black Paladin and Black Paladin Junior acting like this all over again, then we're gonna need the power of Jesus to hold me the fuck back."

You used to have a more romantic flare, but you can't pretend the lions aren't sublime. They tower over you like the real gods they are. Without them, the universe would be nothing.

There's the split second when you wonder if Blue will reject you. Wouldn't be the first time, and your heart is harder now, but part of you wants these lions to fix everything. You hoped for better and the premature adrenaline coursing through your metal heart makes you believe there's still a happy ending. One day you'll hug your mother again One day the constant yearning will go to bed. One day you'll look at yourself and see accomplishments.

You wonder if Voltron is your ending, though.

The night on Olkarion, before Shiro disappeared inside Black, you questioned who you would be outside Voltron. The next day was supposed to be the end of everything, but the end never came. Keith and you traipsing space for cash was also supposed to be the end, but here you are now.

Blue's eyes gleam yellow, wise and alive. As you close in, her head slowly descends, jaw falling along with it. Your bones ache like there's a fire in your marrow hunting for an exit.

While this could also be a sex analogy, you know it's your soul.

The ground shakes beneath your feet as the lions lower their heads one after another. Black waits in front of Shiro, still as death. Only when the others finish bowing does she move for Voltron's figurehead.

You stare down Blue's open throat. The war comes back in pieces, fragmentary memories that shed over you like rippled lighting. There were good times. So many good times and a sense of duty escorted by parties and mandatory friendships that made you believe no one could ever know you as well as the other paladins. That could be true again, but it's different now. You're adults with kids and professions not connected to the lions. Your ambitions are even different, but that last one can change for the better.

As your boots smack against the metal, you hear Shiro thank Kuron. You lift a hand and wave, but you're through the doors before Kuron can offer a sentence. A lift takes you to the cockpit, and when the doors slide open, slower than you remember, the console bursts to life. It's blue, beautiful, and the exact same.

"This doesn't feel real," Keith says over the comm.

You deposit yourself into the seat and grin. "Not even to the person who made it happen?"

"You're really asking to come to blows over that."

"Scared?" you ask as the seat slides forward. Your hands settle on the two control columns, and you squeeze their handles, fingers already damp inside your gloves.

To your right, Keith's face appears on a screen. "You wish."

You wink at him, and Keith narrows his eyes. He fights a smile.

"I'm charming," you tell him. "I know sometimes you need reminding."

"It doesn't count if you're only charming to yourself."

"Are we doing this right now?" Hunk asks. His face appears beside Keith, and he laughs, wiping away a fake tear. "Oh, man. I missed bickering with everyone on tiny screens. It always makes you feel braver when you're not in person. Keith, buddy, I meant to tell you. The hair looks great."

Pidge's face blips beneath Keith. "Is Shiro still talking?"

"He's like the popular dad in a sporting goods store," Keith says, propping his cheek upon a pair of knuckles. "He could talk forever if it meant convincing them he's a nice guy."

"I am so hard for you talking trash about Shiro," Hunk says.

Shiro's cough bleeds through your earpiece. "You're on an open channel, guys."

"I'd say that to your face," Keith promises, smiling even though Shiro can't see him.

Hunk scrutinizes the Red Paladin. "Would you, though? Keith insulting Shiro to his face?"

"He's said worse," Shiro murmurs. You can see Shiro deflate in your head. "Much worse."

Pidge laughs, sharp and a little bit evil. "He has."

Hunk frantically looks between screens. "Where was I for this?"

"Probably hiding out in the lab or cooking," Keith says, inspecting nails concealed by black gloves. "Everyone needs to be taken down a notch once or twice."

"And if you're Keith," you murmur, "then it's every day of your life."

Hunk lifts a finger. "That is not the rhetoric we should be using if we're going to form Voltron to get out of here. Can you two at least pretend you were best friends-turned-boyfriends for seven years?"

You and Keith look away from the screens.

"We don't have to form Voltron," Shiro cuts in. "Kuron has a device Pidge gave him years ago. It'll open the rift. Anyway, I have a gut feeling we couldn't form Voltron right now even if we gave it our all."

"Aren't you supposed to be the optimist?" you ask before lowering your voice to match his trademark authoritative tone. "Form Voltron! Rah, rah, rah! Fight, fight, fight! Anything is possible if you dream!"

"A good leader knows when he's beat," Shiro answers. His face appears on the screen, and he looks you dead in the eye, smiling with one side of his mouth. "Might be a good lesson for all of us to remember."

_This motherfucker._

Keith's screen disappears.

The love between you and Shiro dulled its final shine when Keith was in the medical bay. It was the first time you utilized your water manipulation in years, but at the time, Shiro had it coming.

" _I wonder why anytime Keith is in total despair you're always involved, Shiro. Wouldn't be because you get off on putting him through anything that might prove he can withstand it all just like you."_

" _Lance, this isn't your place, and you know it."_

" _We were together for twice as long as you two were. Get over yourself. The Black Paladin and Red Paladin love story died the second you two agreed you should marry Allura."_

" _That's not what happened."_

" _Keep telling yourself that, Shiro. I'm sure it makes it suck less to think I don't know every single thing that was said between you two. That I didn't comfort Keith through it – "_

" _Some comfort considering you're not together anymore."_

Then you fought, which isn't essential. Mostly because Shiro kicked your ass.

The lions are more important than remembering Shiro scraping you across marble in front of the entire Red Wing, so you focus on that instead. Big, glorious, powerful lions that soar through the air and have the capacity to murder whole planets. It's much better than having to admit you're involved in a quasi-love triangle where no one is together, and all the rage is nearing a decade old.

Shiro gives the go-ahead to ascend. Ahead of you, the yellow light from before appears, splitting open like parting orange segments. Warbled by the trans-reality film, you can see the lab waiting on the other side.

"I'll head in last," Shiro says. "I wanna make sure everyone else gets through first. If not, then the Black Lion and my own abilities should be powerful enough to open a rift."

Honestly, where the fuck _are_  the therapists? Long overdue here, people.

You would give anything for some EMDR or even electroshock therapy. Standards quit being a thing after you and Keith spit roasted a jelly woman (?) on Slobetis, so if it makes you feel calm and maybe even a little bit like a decent human being, then it's all good in your book. It's working.

Lions, lions, lions.

You're flying a lion.

It's  _great_.

You jerk back the steering columns and lift with grinding teeth. The past seven years melt away with the sky hurtling past you in painterly streaks.

You're no longer a deadbeat dad, Keith is happy, Allura isn't worked to the bone, your ex-husband doesn't hate you, and the man who was once your hero is no longer an unspoken enemy.

You're twenty-one, and the universe weighs nothing.

* * *

"You cannot name it the fleshpot."

"Allura, you can't tell me what to do."

Allura lowers the dress she was holding beneath her chin. Her expression hardens as she stares down your reflection in the mirror. "As your empress – "

You cut her off. "As my old friend – "

Seated in Allura's closet, you've been watching her pick through ball gowns for two hours. One of your primary duties in the palace requires being a sweet talker, but you're actually her advisor. Be it a diplomatic tone or what she's wearing to an upcoming event in Alforis, you are her go-to. The only thing she excludes you from is war efforts, which bit both you and her in the ass. For convoluted reasons, she won't budge on this arrangement. Since she compares you to her father and her father wasn't the best war tactician, you assume there's a connection there. Ultimately, Allura doesn't want you to die.

Daddy issues. Who doesn't have them?

You've replaced Coran who desperately needed to retire. The difference is you're significantly more of a friend than any familial figure to her. Coran was an arm's length away uncle. You, not so much.

"It's crude," she murmurs but lifts the dress again. "A lot like this dress and its offensive lack of anything to speak of. What does a girl have to do to get some sparkle around here? Not even color. Just crystals."

"Your entire palace has sparkles and crystals."

"Lance," she says, full of reproach. "Those are two entirely different things."

"I'm calling it Fleshpot," you say. "Not the fleshpot, but Fleshpot. Proper noun."

"Can't we call it something else for the tabloids? Imagine it – " She sets aside the dress and unzips the back of her IAPP suit, letting it fall to her hips. You don't blink. After changing into paladin armor together for months, you've seen her tits so many times it might as well be like watching the sun rise, except much prettier. She has nice tits, almost as good as Shiro's, but in your current state, sexualizing her would give you chronic fatigue. "The newly reunited Paladins of Voltron can be found spending their free time at Fleshpot, a debauchery hotel curated by the Blue Paladin himself."

"Sounds pretty in character to me." You hop onto the island in the center of the closet. It lights up beneath you, and a holographic computer appears in front of your face. It scans you.

"A lovely goatee," the closet chirps.

"Damn straight."

Allura finishes changing into the dress and whistles for your attention.

"When do you think the house will be done?" she asks. "After Keith decimated your blueprints, I thought you wouldn't break ground for months, and yet here we are, talking about paint and tasteless names."

"I'm using the Olkari technology we're using in the emergency refugee camps I've been helping with. The exterior will take a week, but the interior will probably be a work in progress until I die." You watch her twirl in the dress and lounge on your side, admiring how she admires herself. "It's a great cut, pretty girl. Why not ask the designer to add crystals? I doubt they'd object."

"It's rude to tell a designer what to do," she says, swaying in it. "Did you get the shag carpet?"

"Keith can fuck himself. Shag carpet is aesthetically practical, and whether or not Keith agrees doesn't matter to me. When I asked for his input, I wasn't asking for – "

" – his input?"

You glare at her, mouth slipping to the side. "I ordered six rolls from Earth thirty seconds later."

"You vindictive little boy. If we're going to form Voltron, then you two should really try to make amends." Allura turns and faces you, hands on her hips. "I'm going to tell the designer to add crystals."

Winking at her, you smile. "There we go. Take the bull by the horns."

Allura removes the dress and replaces it with a casual one meant for the Blue Wing. She whisked aside time for Ryou, and it's all she's looked forward to for days. Rather than leave the closet, she hops onto the island beside you and leans back on her palms, taking a moment to enjoy the silences you two share.

"Does Shiro have an issue with the fact I watch you undress in your closet, which you know, is connected to your love dungeon?"

"Love dungeon," she echoes. Allura blinks away her disgust. "I don't think he knows. We've changed in front of one another since our time in the castle ship. It's not different, and anyway, Shiro never exhibits any form of jealousy. You and I have proven time and time again we're very platonic. Should I tell him?"

"No," you answer too quickly. "But yeah. Fleshpot should be done soon. I want you to be the first to see it. If it's not classy enough, then I'll change it around for you."

"Just not the name," she teases.

"I have to stay true to my heart."

Through combat orders and Pidge's need to upgrade the lions with mad science, you've been put in a liminal space that allows you to focus on your more  _personal_  projects.

Fleshpot, not  _the_  fleshpot, is a luxurious treehouse strictly intended for hedonism. The private opium den is currently being built on huge trees comparable to Earth's banyan trees with aerial prop roots and a front and center seat to both Balmera Palace and Alforis' hillside homes. While it does overlook both the ocean's rosé water and the most accessible beach, the house itself isn't accessible.

The deadly whirlpools are a footnote to the invisible shield masking the island, which you haven't named yet but are working on. Strong enough to withstand death rays and hurricanes, no one can cross it unauthorized.

"You're free to go," Allura says, sinking farther back. "Ryou's lessons won't be over for a while longer. Shiro is training with Kolivan before he checks in on the new paladin training room so I might grab lunch with Pidge. I also might see if Keith finished signing those ordinances. He's gotten faster."

"He reads every word." You press your cheek against the island top and grunt. "I'm going to find Hunk."

Allura checks her watch. "You've been spending a lot of time with him again."

"Ex-husband or not, he was my buddy long before Voltron. No one's gonna know me the way Hunk does, not even ole Keith." You push yourself off the island and grab her set aside dress, folding it over an arm. "I'll drop this off on my way out."

"My hero," Allura says, watching you go.

On your way through the Blue Wing den, you pass Keith. He's wearing his IAPP uniform with disheveled bangs, smiling to himself while reading his watch. For the first couple weeks with the new haircut, he kept it gelled back during meetings, but everyone knew that wouldn't last. His hair is now a consistently fluffed mess urged on by New Altea's humidity.

Keith twitches an ear when your steps approach. He looks up, smile faltering but not wholly gone.

"Why the cheese?" you ask, tapping the corner of your mouth. You only slow your stride.

Keith joins you, closing the messaging app on his watch. "Better question. Why the dress?"

"Allura is getting ready for the Soller Gala in a couple months," you explain. Keith quirks an eyebrow, entirely lost. You squint. "Downtown, Keith. The museum opening for the lost cultures. It's huge."

"Oh," he says and scratches the side of his face. "My closet has been yelling about that. I feel like there's a gala once a week."

"This one's different. It's important. We're honoring the dead. If you don't have someone designing your formalwear now, then get on it. You're cutting it too close unless _naked_  is your next fashion statement."

Keith rubs his temple and looks ahead.

"I know it's important. I added funding to the construction but cut me some slack. I've barely been able to differentiate between the cream and sugar this week. Sendak took my invitation to advise on the combat plan with more enthusiasm than I expected. We've been scouting around the clock and walking directly into meetings with five minutes to decipher our findings. I'm kind of dying here."

"You drink your coffee and tea straight."

Blinking, Keith furrows his brow. "It was a metaphor. Look, if you don't believe me, then I have security footage of Shiro asleep on the training observatory deck."

"Send it to me," you say, grinning. He side-eyes you. "Always nice to have leverage over Shiro. I'm gonna ask Hunk if he wants to grab lunch. You should come along. Be a person, baby."

Keith licks a pointy canine. "This feels like an ambush about the combat plan."

"That's your guilt talking. I think it's stupid, but since when do you care what I think? All I'm looking for is food and gossip."

"Fair," Keith says, considering. His expression sinks. "Don't take it personally, Lance. I want to, but I have a lot to do in the Red Wing today. Been nauseous since breakfast anyway. Doubt I'd eat much."

You wave him off, lifting and dropping shoulders. "Your loss."

There's no point in pressuring him to the end of irritation. You drop Allura's dress off with a robot waiting by the Blue Wing exit. There you type in Allura's request, which is 'more sparkle but within the empress's aesthetic,' and disappear into the Balmera Palace thicket.

After lunch with Hunk, which has become an every other day event of glowing whorled shellfish from the Ublov's iridescent seas, you disappear into the Blue Garden.

To reach your island, you have two options. One is to wait for the tide to recede, which it does twice a day. The second option is to part the ocean yourself, but the backlash is dangerous if you're not careful. If you're not careful, then you could flood your own beach. To keep things simple, you time the tides and garage your bike under a cloaking device in a cave tucked behind verdant foliage.

As you climb your bike, you think about Hunk's words during lunch.

" _You're gonna build this sanctuary and never come back."_

He's probably right.

The ride across the wetland is brisk and refreshing. A concentrated briny scent whips past you and suns bakes your naked shoulders. Beneath the hoverbike, shells whip past, creating pastel afterimages like cars zipping along a highway for long exposure photography.

Howling at the brilliant suns above, you would sooner end your life feeling as human as you do right now than spend the rest of your life perceived as a god.

"Coran!" you shout, spotting the Altean on the island shoreline. He's wearing a one-piece outfit reminiscent of 1950s swimwear. The white and blue blocking is the only feature giving it dignity. "A little early for the housewarming party."

His twitchy mustache can't hide his smile. "Just seeing what all the fuss was about. Couldn't help myself. It looks like it'll be done sooner than I thought. Are those ancient Altean architectural references I see?"

Parked, you dismount the bike and kick off your shoes. "Allura gave me the idea."

"Ah. It's a shame Allura won't spend more time here."

"You don't know that yet," you say and turn your eyes to the construction. "Isn't she looking pretty?"

"She," Coran nods, stroking his chin with a thumb. "Because your species biological females carry their young inside themselves throughout gestation, it would make sense to use 'she' pronouns for a home. When you're inside it, you're safe and warm like a womb."

Weird.

"Safe and warm," you repeat, fighting a traumatic flashback. "Sure, Coran, but I don't think this is a home a mother should know about."

Your eyes refocus on the house.

Fleshpot is divided into three saucer-shaped chunks connected by plank bridges and platform elevators. Each saucer sits on a different level and is slated by burnt orange wood and cocoa nib-color thatch roofs. Your favorite part is how each level plays a specific role, but no matter where you go, there's a balcony to think and drink on. The bottom balcony juts out the farthest, putting its viewer over the beach and closest to the water. The first floor is also for the biggest parties while the second floor is the kitchen, den, and office and the third is bedrooms and private bathrooms.

"How much longer then?"

"Once the flooring is in, and the doors are installed, I can start placing furniture." The two of you take the path beneath the shadowing canopy and stop in front of the support tree. The tree bark peels back like a door, and you enter it like an elevator. Pressing the first-floor button, you rest against the grainy wall.

"Did you order the shag?" Coran asks as if it's an entirely innocent question.

"I might be putting it in a couple rooms."

"I'm sure Keith's room will look top class."

In a flurry of furniture orders and IAPP paperwork regarding piloting the lions, the weeks past by. At this point, you don't understand the holdup on the lions. There's no reason for it.

There was a time when you had free reign over Blue, but that's no longer the case. Every upgrade to her framework has to be debated by the Red Wing, and with each passing delay, you grow impatient, irritable. You tasted what it's like inside Blue again, and all you want to do is burn rubber along moon rocks.

You think you've reached your limit the day before Fleshpot's housewarming party.

Due to last minute decorative adjustments like light fixture swaps and the teeth clenching desire for quintessence, you consider calling off the party and smoking hinter bush alone. If Hunk weren't in the middle of finalizing the catering, then you would. Fortunately, you're not an inconsiderate enough.

In the middle of lighting up a joint beneath floating party orbs on the first-floor balcony, a holographic screen rises from your watch. It's Allura's face, and she's waiting beneath the trees in front of the elevator.

"Surprise, surprise," you say, leaning forward and arching an eyebrow. "What an honor. The Empress, visiting me at my humble abode, without her royal guard."

"Spare me, Lance," she says and lifts a glass bottle. It's chardonnay painstakingly imported from Earth. The wine was likely stolen from Hunk's collection, too. Perfect. "I wanted to see it. Before the party tomorrow, I mean."

You set aside the joint, standing. "Before it's ruined by my sticky fingers, you mean."

"I'm accustomed to those sticky fingers. I'm more concerned about the chemical reaction between yours and every other sticky finger that will enter after me."

"Fair." You grant her access to the elevator. Already you can see she's in casual wear. Her short hair is tied back into a ponytail, and her makeup has been washed off. "I'll meet you on the second floor."

The bottle is opened in the sprawling kitchen and followed by the tour.

As you wander across glossy hardwood floors and past mid-century pieces crafted with law-defying carpentry, you chat with Allura about the artists in the refugee camps and the engineers outside Olkari who figured out how to stabilize the wooden platforms that lift between bridge landings. She carefully listens, repeating names to remember, and requests a full write up of who created what.

"Six bedrooms," you say, strolling down the third-floor hall. "Mine's lofted above an office that overlooks Balmera Palace. The others are simpler and designed after each paladin, but they're for anyone who stays. This isn't supposed to be everyone's second house, you know? It's kind of just here."

Allura sips from her glass. The sunsets create a green glow along her pink facial markings, highlighting every diamond angle on her face. "This place is a dream. Everyone is going to love it, Lance."

Sometimes words just happen. "I want you to love it, princess."

"Princess." She laughs and tilts her head to the side. "I wish I could spend more time here once it's open, but I know I won't have the time."

After the words fall from her mouth, her expression dims, somehow managing to plunge the suns beneath the horizon even faster. She's always been powerful like that.

"Let's head to the best part," you say, touching her shoulder. "If you've seen one bedroom, then you've seen them all."

You take her to first-floor balcony.

Allura leans over the railing and stares down Balmera Palace, refilled glass in hand. You pay particular attention to the cords flexing along her shoulders, the way the baby hairs on her neck submit to the humid air barely tamed by the ocean breeze. Allura leans forward and deflates, bowing to the palace.

She wants to talk. You know she does, and you would give pieces of yourself to her if it meant she would drop the façade.

"The palace feels so far away here," she says, lifting glowing eyes. "What I wouldn't give for a place like this."

"Allura, I mean it. You're always welcome here. I'll even send over a schedule, so you'll know when there's a party happening. You can hang out or avoid it upstairs. I won't care."

"Thank you, Lance, but I could never make this place a habit. One day I'd take Ryou here and never leave again." She fights the quiet rage in her voice and smiles. "I believe that would be imposing."

It doesn't scare you. It makes you braver. You want your son.

Allura rises slow and takes a long drink. You approach her side and carefully watch her. She furrows her brow, and her fissuring demeanor is a thinly veiled gift. Allura swirls her glass.

"Did Keith love you?"

Allura knows about the night you punched Keith and the child you've never seen. There's no one else to tell. There's no one else capable of understanding what it feels like to exist on duty's thin ice.

Had you become Vogriri's king, then the IAPP would have never trusted you again. You would have proved everyone right.

'Glory over the cause –' is how they would have interpreted it, and you didn't have your heart shredded more times than you can count only to have your dignity stolen, too. You'll go back for him, and Allura stands beside you as a friend, knowing you meant it when you sobbed at her feet and swore you would.

_"I picked the IAPP over my son, Allura, and I didn't even work here when I did it. We're not in a war anymore. Choices like this were supposed to fucking stop. Why did we think they would ever stop? I have a baby. I have a baby, and your husband and Keith mock me like I know nothing about life or loss or pain."_

" _We're going to deal with this, Lance. We will find a way to negotiate with Vogriri and safely remove him. Leave this to me. I will personally invite them here if I have to."_

" _They're bad people, Allura. We dealt with some nasty motherfuckers during the war, but these are people who benefited from Zarkon's reign more than his own Commanders. My son isn't leaving without a fight."_

"  _I will fight with you. Tell me everything you know about them."_

" _Only if you swear to me Keith never knows we had this conversation."_

" _Not a word."_

"Yeah," you say, the thought belated by memory. "Sometimes I imagine Keith still does. Feelings don't have an on and off switch. It's a constant circuit. Cut the shit or live with it."

Allura looks at your wistful expression, realizing. "You still love him."

"No on and off switch," you reiterate and drink deeply from the stemless glass. "We could pull the trigger on one another, and I'd still love him through it. Romantic or not. He's a pal I love. It's kinda annoying."

"I'm worried about him," she says. The words are distant and tight with anger. "He's not the Keith I know in my heart, Lance. He's always been brash and brave, but he was also proud and despised war. This combat plan is an inevitable war order. I want to hate him for it. He makes me question the IAPP's security. He makes me question Shiro because Shiro won't combat the idea. I can't watch full planets die again, Lance. I won't sit here and let my own people destroy life if there is any other option."

She glowers at her glass, bottom lip quivering.

"Things were supposed to be different," she finishes, whispering and swiping up a tear. "I don't understand, but I feel like this place is eating us alive, Lance. It was a dream. This is a nightmare."

"Life catches up with people, Allura." You wish you were drinking something stronger. "Keith hasn't been stable for a long time and coming back here makes him deal with a lot of the things he hasn't bothered to look at in years." Pressing your hip against the rail, you stare past the palace. "As for Shiro, well, his parting with Keith was ugly. I'm sure he feels at odds with Keith. He was his best friend. Shiro might be trying to make amends here. It's not easy being a Black Paladin with a pissed right hand."

Allura wipes another tear and softly apologizes. You slide your hand on top of hers but don't look at her. She's as prideful as Keith, and tears are a point of shame. She'll avoid you if you acknowledge them.

"Nothing here is easy for Shiro," Allura says, laughing through her sniffing.

You should lift your hand but don't. "He's different now, too. It's like Keith but subtler. Shiro knows how to pull the veil over all of us."

"The only thing he doesn't hate about this place is his son," she whispers. Rage clinks her teeth like a forced kiss. "If Ryou wasn't here with us, then he would be gone. I know it. I know."

"Shiro loves you, Allura."

She shakes her head. "There is a difference between loving someone and being in love."

There were many conversations you intended to have at Fleshpot, but the state of Allura's marriage isn't one of them. At least, not before the first champagne bottle popped and venereal disease was passed.

You know why she feels like Shiro only loves her and isn't in love with her, and you bitterly swallow the truth. It's not yours to tell.

You stare at Allura, serious. Empathy doing its fucking worst, as always. "Do  _you_  love him?"

She speaks without feeling. "I wanted to love him the way my mother loved my father. I really did."

Holy shit. That was  _dead_.

Pausing, it takes you a moment to gather your thoughts.

'Dump his ass' isn't a good way to go about this with her.

"Marriages go caput, Allura," you say, testing the waters. "It's better to acknowledge it's done than rot in it. If you're not happy with Shiro, then why are you still with him? Surely you two can make some special arrangement where you both rule as friends and not spouses. We've conceived this monarchy, and we're all called gods. You can fix this and make yourself happy – "

Allura's back stiffens. "We're trying for another baby, Lance. The IAPP is about to plummet into war, and while I know you find my culture's politics regressive, many of our allies exist in familial monarchies. Ending a marriage as we enter a war looks like weakness."

You will never understand this archaic bullshit. "Then pretend to be happily married and see other people. If you're playing a part – "

"Being his wife, having Ryou, starting this alliance with him? Those were never played parts." Allura rips her hand from yours. You step away and give her space. "I've slept beside Shiro for seven of your Earth years, Lance. Other things, too. Other things that are  _private_. He knows me intimately."

It amazes you they even fuck outside procreation considering Shiro is as Shiro is, but then again, Shiro is a fickle soul with facets that shift under a new light. You never could read him.

"I'm sorry, princess." You mean it. Advisor or not, this isn't your place. "I'm worried. That's all."

"Don't apologize." She shakes her head and wipes her face again. Allura looks at the sky, eyes as hot and unsettled as a newly birthed star. You want her to know it's okay to be disappointed. Everyone is. "You're the only person who still calls me princess. I want to go back to being a princess. I want to redo this."

"Oh, come on," you tease, needing her to smile. "The IAPP is too young for a redo. It's like looking at Ryou now and saying he'll never get his life together."

Allura sweeps back her bangs and fights a laugh. She shakes her head and walks toward the table for the bottle. You watch her pour. Her hand trembles. "I have a hard question."

"I'm all water, pretty girl. It'll slip through me."

"Do we, the paladins, love each other or the universe we saved together?"

This puts your heart through an obstacle, but you tackle it, unafraid. "Both."

"I want to believe there can't be one without the other, but I'm afraid it's wishful thinking. We burned brightly together when we were needed, but then we burned out. We collapsed into black holes."

"We're also young, Allura. This is just another hard season," you say, meaning it. You have to, or you'll break. "It's what we get for picking a planet with autumn that lasts years."

"I don't feel young." She sinks into a chair. "I'm ancient in my head. Technically, I'm over 10,000 years old."

You finish your drink. "I don't feel young either, but I'm going to keep telling myself I am."

Her eyes settle on you, and the urge to comfort her is unbearable, hot on your skin.

"Thank you, Lance."

"It's my job, honey."

Allura changes the topic by eyeing your hinter bush. You tell her she can have it. If anyone needs a yearlong bong rip, then it's Allura. Shiro asks you for hinter bush once a week, so she can, too. Allura doesn't take you up on it and slips into a conversation about an upcoming fashion show.

When the bottle is empty, she stands for a hug, kisses your forehead like you're a child, and leaves for the palace on her hoverbike.

Zooming over open water in her pink tinted glasses and white leather jacket, you watch from the balcony. Your heart thuds in your throat and the strange sensation makes you rake fingers through your hair.

Damn.

* * *

At the party the following night, Allura is an empress again, and you're a host hankering for an orgy with no memory of the feelings you had when she raced away on her hoverbike.

Allura is dressed to the nines in a white backless dress and fashionably low neckline, skirt revealing sculpted thighs and Altean markings that lead God only knows where. Her chest is concealed by a halter that clamps around her neck like a ribbon choker, and the cut exposes her shoulders and hard biceps.

You watch her laugh at Shiro's joke, which probably isn't even funny because Shiro isn't funny. The dim blue light dissolves around Allura, and the focus is on her, her, her. It always has been, hasn't it?

Fuck.

"This place is all luxury, man," Hunk says, slinging an arm around your shoulders. He clinks his drink against yours and scrutinizes the crowd. "Got a feeling it's barely started, though."

You nudging him with an elbow and wink. "You know it. Half the party isn't even here yet. Thanks for catering the whole thing. You didn't have to. Wanted you to enjoy it yourself, you know?"

"I hired help. I'm enjoying it fine. This is all casual for me."

The gathering at Fleshpot is anything but a casual, though.

Flutes chime against one another or plunk onto counter tops, ringing like glass bells. They create a song that drapes the music thudding through your boots, which are knee high and black. Someone is smoking an herb you don't recognize, but it fills the air with multicolor glitter. Every other minute is punctuated by laughter and the movement of another person falling under the beat's spell. As you assumed it would be, the balcony is packed tight with bodies. This is also why it's where the two open bars and the majority of seating are placed. It'll keep the entertainment hall from becoming clustered, or people breaking things.

The elevator dings for the hundredth time.

Whenever the elevator door opens, you glance to see if you recognize the guest. Your eyes lift, but the usual once-over is replaced by coughing. Hunk loud laughs at your reaction and you shove him.

"How does someone who cares so little about himself always manage to make the biggest ruckus with himself?" Hunk asks, shaking his glass to dislodge ice. The final dregs of his glowing gold drink stick to the circular chunks. "He had to know that outfit was going to make everyone talk, talk, talk. I'm calling it. He's always been a ham in disguise."

Hunk means Keith.

Standing with a severe beauty better suited for a villain, Keith looks like he rolled out of bed five seconds before dressing and hopping on his bike. As he often is, he's in a white turtleneck, and that's fine. Keith wears the same style into the ground for years. He's practically a cartoon character. What's different is the shirt is a crop top. This also wouldn't catch a second glance if the shirt wasn't painted on like spilled latex. Pairing the shirt with his red biker jacket, oil slick pants, and black riding boots makes him almost look as good as you do.

Keith passively glances your way and smiles. He disappears into the crowd with an agile slide between two bodies. Not even a hello. You wish you were surprised enough to give a damn.

"He knows he's hot," you tell Hunk, distaste on your tongue. "He admitted it once. Keith doesn't like to utilize his dark powers unless it's necessary, though."

"That Keith is clearly on vacation. You know, what with that whole combat plan thing we still haven't gotten any real explanation for. Wouldn't surprise me if he's dressed like this for the attention."

"Gossipy and judgmental this evening, Hunk? How unlike you." Hunk shrugs, eyes shut and unapologetic. You search the crowd for Keith "So say Keith is doing it for looks. Give me your theories here, my man. I want to know why you think Keith cares about sex appeal this month."

"Didn't think that far ahead," he admits, still conspiring. You smell his breath. That wasn't his first drink. "A hot politician is a powerful one. It's basic social science."

Simply put but not wrong. You don't want to talk about how hot Keith is with Hunk, though. There's also the chance he's digging into you for details, which you won't give. "Have you seen Pidge?"

Hunk points behind himself with a thumb. "Balcony with Matt."

"Thanks," you say, patting his arm and slipping away.

When you spot Pidge, she's fishing a pickled flower from her glass. She spots you, flushed, and lifts her empty glass high. Matt laughs at her, also red-faced. His husband is with the kids. You don't have to ask.

"Give me the grand tour when everyone's gone," Pidge says. It's an order. She smacks the balcony railing and nods, thumbing its wave engravings. "Olkari engineers don't dabble in a lot of artistry, you know?"

"Count on it."

A heavy hand settles on your shoulder and pulls you back, warm and familiar. Shiro is beside you with Allura who's laughing at Pidge's double finger waggle that's supposed to be a wave.

"You should be proud of the place," Shiro says. He finishes his drink, sets it aside, and grabs a second from a passing tray. It's unlike Shiro to drink without prompting. Your nosey feelers want to touch, find out what's wrong with him. "The view, Lance. Stars and all. Balmera Palace is hard to appreciate when you live in it, you know? So really nice. It's a great job."

"I love drunk Shiro," Pidge says and reaches up to pap Shiro's face. Shiro beams. "Look at that sunshine!"

"Lightweight," Matt jokes. "Never was able to hold his liquor."

Shiro lifts his shoulders and dramatically exhales, letting them fall. "Trying to dislodge the stick from my ass."

You look at Pidge who looks at you. Hiding your surprised smiles, you both glance back at Shiro. Allura lifts the corner of her mouth, smiling at him and letting it go for the evening.

"Has anyone seen Keith?" Pidge asks.

Shiro tosses back another mouthful of amber. He crunches into ice and looks away as if he couldn't care less. Your suspicions lift higher than a helium balloon. Pidge's do, too. She taps your ankle with her foot.

"He's in the crowd inside," you say, gesturing toward the doors with your glass. "Look for the white latex crop top and poorly groomed happy trail."

Shiro continues chewing ice. "Did he come here with anyone?"

The idea alone makes you bark. "He flew in solo, but I doubt he'll leave that way. Not in his outfit."

"A partner would probably help him," Allura says, bringing wine to her lips. Shiro runs his fingers through his bangs, and you can't take your focus off him. "A casual someone. If only to relax or talk to."

Matt scratches his throat, watching Shiro, too. "There's Sendak."

Shiro's expression drops, and you realize. You realize. Something.

Something, something, something.

You push away from them because you can't look at Shiro. "I'm going to find Keith and bring him over here. Over to the par-tay."

The elusive Keith is discovered seated in the couch pit. His lids are heavy, eyes vaguely glazed, and he's holding a blunt that's on life support.

You pluck at Keith's shirt. Startled, he looks up as you hand him an untouched drink. "Nice clothes, slut."

"My closet picked it out," Keith says, flashing teeth. He sips from the glass and frowns because of its unforgiving strength. Keith swallows without quivering and leans back, thighs wide open. "Don't worry, Lance. I wasn't trying to show you up at your new house. The place is nice, by the way. Like the view."

"Everyone keeps commenting on it." You're a little disappointed Keith wasn't attempting to stir the pot with his abs. Knocking your glass against his, you gesture at his recreational drug. "You like the view  _and_  the offerings, apparently."

"I'm trying to behave," he admits, leaning closer like he's telling a secret. "Recently got in trouble for being too loud in the Red Wing. His Highness scolded me."

There we go.

"That's why you're not up his ass."

Keith dismisses the comment with a sip. "We're supposed to be equals in the Red Wing."

"The entire team is supposed to be equals throughout the entire IAPP," you remind him. Keith darts his eyes to the side. You're a good person no matter what your low self-esteem writes on the mirror in lipstick, so deciding to soften the blow, you lean forward and glance from left to right. You grab one of your pectorals and squeeze, grinning. "I get it, though. Ya sabes que a Shiro le encanta sacar sus chichotas para probar algo. Es un gallote—siempre muy verga larga."

_You know Shiro loves to stick out his big tits to prove something. He's a rooster—always with the long dick._

Rolling his eyes, Keith rubs his lips together. After an internal battle, one of his eyebrows springs high. "Le crecierion tanto que ni siquiera se daría cuenta si tumbaran a un pobre bebé de los brazos de su madre."

_They grew so much he wouldn't even notice if he knocked a poor baby out of its mother's arms._

"¿Y cuál es tu excusa, con tus mini-chichis?"

_And what's your excuse, with your tiny tits?_

"Pelea de gallos," Keith says, inhaling and laughing from the gravel pit in his chest. "Sólo para los que la tienen grande."

_Cockfight. Only for those with a big cock._

"¿Pero si tienes tentáculos, ya no es justo, no?" You sharpen your stare. "A demás, bien sabes que las peleas de gallos las ganan las espuelas y el hambre."

_But if you have tentacles, it's not a fair fight anymore, right? Besides, you know that cockfights are won by spurs and hunger._

Keith nudges you with his boot. "You're a balm for my soul."

"I'm an ethical sadist, baby. Always apply the cream after the burn."

Keith stuffs an orange decorative pillow beneath his armpit and props his elbow on it. His chin falls onto his knuckles, and he inspects you. "Why do you still call me baby?"

"Habit," you say, flat and truthful. "Like  _gatito_."

"People really can be habits," Keith murmurs, thoughtful and unbothered. "But people are never  _good_  habits."

You were together too long not to know when something's eating Keith. Not just eating him but tearing at his heart like vultures on roadkill. You take the joint from his fingers. "You were a good habit. I'll never regret you, Keith. You can't spend years doing something that was mostly good and then hate it. It's unhealthy. It invalidates us. Look, I know we're the shit that hit the fan, but you can still talk to me."

Keith lowers his eyes. "I don't regret you either. You were good for me when you were."

Reaching for his bicep, you squeeze it. "Did Shiro do something else, Keith?"

"No," Keith lies. He knows you can tell when he's lying, too. "He didn't do anything."

"I'm mad at you," you admit, voice steeled. "But you're my friend. We're still best friends."

Though the party is wheeling past in its contained chaos, a quiet gathers along you like snow. You want Keith to tell you what's wrong, but all he does is part his lips and stare at the ice in his glass.

* * *

The first Fleshpot orgy happens under a full moon, and you wake up with three thorns as thick as iron nails embedded in your left thigh. After an excruciating extraction in Pidge's office, you vow to ask about thorns before engaging in sex again. Pidge tells you to keep that between yourself and God.

When you're not railing dust off a bare ass or nailing strangers in dark corners, Fleshpot is a quiet retreat for you and the other paladins. On his worst nights, Keith flies in on his bike with a bottle of gin in his bag. If things could be worse, he lets himself in to smoke from the silver and blue hookah fixed in the center of the den like an art piece. You've lost count of the times you've found him passed out on the couch. Seeing Keith unguarded and toasted out of his mind reminds you he's human and probably scared.

Scared of what? Life. Just thinking about it can knock you on your ass sometimes.

Hunk drops by when he wants to cook in a more intimate kitchen or the others want to have dinner outside the sterile Blue Wing. Pidge appreciates the treehouse's mechanics and perpetually stocked bar, often tagging along with Keith or Matt. Shiro only visits if Keith bullies him. Allura never comes.

On the night you'll forever view as 'the apex,' the entire team (sans Allura) is present at Fleshpot. Hunk made red wine fondue, so you're gathered in the den, watching Alforis broadcasts.

"I feel so old," Keith groans, reaching high above himself and stretching until his back pops. He finishes and drops his arms onto his lap, sighing.

Shiro offers him a mocking smile. "You're only twenty-seven."

"I'm also almost thirty," Keith reminds him, shutting his eyes. "Pick one, Shiro."

"Maybe we could do something that'll help us feel young again," Hunk suggests, swiping speared bread through the molten cheese.

Pidge munches on an apple slice. "Like what?"

"Hide and seek."

Plopping down beside him, you cross your legs and reach for a cubed piece of bread. You pop it between your lips and nod, pointing at the man. "Hunk, you're a genius."

Shiro hooks his mouth to the side, unsure and cautious as ever. "Why do I get the feeling this could become a little predator and prey? None of you have self-control."

"Speak for yourself," Pidge murmurs.

"I'm down," Keith says, eyes still shut.

Rubbing your hands together, you sweep your gaze across everyone. "Okay. If we do this, then we do this au naturel. No powers, kids."

Keith grins, arching his back to stretch. "You're asking to get murdered."

"We'll see about that."

"I'll seek first," Hunk says, lifting a hand. He lets it fall onto Keith's shoulder. "Keith can seek with me."

Hide and seek has two modes; a giggly jaunt toward the nearest closet or that sweaty, adrenaline-pumping, fight or flight state where you learn children's games can emulate the kitchen scene from Jurassic Park. The latter is especially true considering you decided to match Hunk's genius by suggesting to turn off every single light in the house. The first round was fun, casual, but then the competitive edge sank in, and by the third round, you were found sweating and clenching teeth.

_I'm going to die here._

This isn't true, but as you lie motionless on the top shelf in an upstairs closet, you imagine scenarios. Shiro and Pidge are seeking, and every creak or breeze makes you twitch. The last thing you want to see in the dark is Shiro's eyes reflecting yellow or a tiny gremlin sniffing through the room, out for blood and bone meal. You count your breaths and wonder if Hunk is okay. He's probably dead by now. Keith can hold his own, but there's always the off chance the one night you decided to play hide and seek is the one night a serial killer decided to break in. You forget your island is guarded by a forcefield.

You also forget you're a Paladin of Voltron. You've saved the universe countless times, but that's the fun in it. Maybe predator-style hide and seek is a kind of coping therapy. A sense of near death but controlled.

That's too deep for you. You're having fun here.

One wall over, something falls with a thud. There's a muffled shout.

_Shit. Shit. Shit._

Jolting, you whack your head against the ceiling and hiss, rubbing your forehead. Sanity returns to you, and you pause to see if you can hear who was found. Waiting in the heavy silence, nothing comes. The adrenaline and paranoia amplify your concern for your fellow hiders, so you slip off the shelf as if you're air itself. Your socked feet touch the closet floor, and you cringe, waiting for the explosion. When it doesn't come, you inch open the door without a creak.

Through the window, Balmera Palace glimmers back at you, but aside from that, dark has flooded the room. Only when the wind shakes trees do shadows shift, creating phantom reflections.

Something about th bang in the room over followed by total stillness make your stomach churn. You know it's subsiding anxiety from hiding. You're not sure if it applies as acute stress.

Honoring the rules, you don't turn on the light. The game is still in progress, so you crouch and waddle toward the door. The voices are gone for now. You furrow your brow and manually slip open the bedroom door. As much as you want to use your sonar powers, you bite through the urge and carefully peek around the doorframe. No one is trailing Shiro or Pidge down the hall, so you rise and step outside into the weighted hush, feeling simultaneously more alone than ever but also watched by every eye.

A whisper threads down the hall, purling as it slips against your ear canal. No longer sure if you should be playing a game, you walk forward to eavesdrop, stopping outside the nearest door.

"This carpet really suits you."

Shiro's muffled words hit you first, and Keith's thorny laughter follows.

"Shut up, Shiro."

"We can get it installed in the Blue Wing for you," Shiro says, innocent as ever. "I'm sure Lance would love to give you the – okay, okay. Eager."

Eager.

You could walk away now and slip into oblivion. There's that nice saying about ignorance being bliss, but you're a nosy bitch who needs full context even at the expense of your heart.

"I missed you," Keith says, low and serious.

Shiro takes his time. "I've been here all day."

"I still miss you."

Shiro's laughter is gentle, and your curl your nose. Outside, the distant stars are still guttering, and their nearest cousins will lift above the horizon in hours, but the universe is deconstructing in this hallway.

"I know what you mean."

Their words drift into a whisper, and it's private, devoted. You pretend it's not real. When you smacked your head in the closet, you knocked yourself out. This is a fever dream. Digging your fingers into your eyes, a deep ache thrums, and you know this is real. This obvious fucking situation is real, but of course, it is. There have been signs for weeks. Signs you subconsciously threw down the basement stairs.

Keith said 'I love you' to Shiro outside the lion vault.

Your teeth clink together before they bear down. The air around you is so polluted, so ugly, but this isn't a climate you want to save. These hussies are actually doing this in your brand new home. They're using your place for escapism, which is what it was intended for, but with your select ethical parameters.

"Fuck," you whisper against your knuckles.

You wonder about emotional greed. You wonder whether or not this is your fault.

It's hard not to shoulder the guilt when you were the one who pressured Keith to return. Then again, it's been over half a decade. You're not a model candidate for object permanence, but it's safe to say six years is more than enough time to stew and get the fuck over a shitty relationship. It  _was_  shitty, too. It was.

You joked about Shiro's nice ass around Keith because it's an objective fact, but _surely_ you gave Keith enough time. Okay, no. You gave him more than  _time_. That wasn't encouragement.

You gave Keith yourself too, which doesn't count because he can always say he never asked for it. In the most technical sense, that's not true, but you'd mean emotional giving. Keith for sure never asked for that.

Keith  _did_  come to you the night before Shiro's wedding, infuriated because he couldn't have his cake and eat it too. More than anything, he wanted to eat Shiro's wedding cake, which in hindsight, was the most predictable outcome. For context, before Keith approached you, Allura asked you to "give her away" because Coran was officiating and she wanted Shiro's wedding to be a "human" experience. Even after you explained that giving someone away is a weird possessive element, she didn't budge.

Agreeing scarred your heart, but whatever.

Years of love and affection for Allura settled on a shelf, wrapped and left to be unopened. You accepted that the second she asked, but when Keith asked to leave New Altea with you, the desperation in his eyes told you he would never lay down his feelings for Shiro. His love would erupt and keep erupting until it obliterated the IAPP, which wasn't something you could be complacent in. Had Keith not tagged along on your escapist journey across the universe, then he would have ruined both a marriage and the IAPP.

Keith knew, too. He wasn't doing it just for himself.

Back then, Shiro loved Keith's down to the final molecule. Through every dehumanizing expectation, he never faltered in that love. They were each other's sickness, but Keith made them terminal.

When you discovered Shiro signed a marriage agreement with Allura at Keith's suggestion, you tackled Keith into the dirt outside the IAPP camp. You slammed. Shiro wanted it, he'd say. That didn't mean shit. Shiro would do anything for Keith at that point, especially if it benefited the universe too.

" _I want a life with him. This is the easiest way to get them off our backs and prove the IAPP thing is sound. You'd understand if you actually listened to us – "_

_You slammed his shoulders again._

" _Doesn't Shiro deserve to be his own person for once? Don't you, man? What about you? You're going to get older and hate yourself for this. Marriage isn't a fucking cog, Keith. They'll have marital duties. They'll make babies, and you will fall through the cracks."_

" _He's not going to sleep with Allura. Shiro doesn't like women enough, and Allura isn't that interested in him either. She knows they're getting married because it's easier and – "_

_THAT. THAT INTERESTED._

_You shook him, screamed in his face._

" _You're a fucking idiot, Keith!"_

You would say 'I told you so' if you were a lesser man.

Soon enough, groans sweep down the hall. Keith rarely sounded like that with you, but here he is with someone who doesn't even know him anymore, gnashing his teeth through firing neurons, confessions.

"I love you."

_You love what, Keith?_

Keith spoke of Shiro with vitriol before he entered Balmera Palace. Hate is genetically engineered from love or whatever poetic bullshit you learned on Earth, but Keith's heartbreak wasn't loving.

Keith said,

" **I shouldered our mutual weight for years."**

Keith said,

" **Shiro didn't even** _ **want**_ **to talk about us after he signed the papers."**

Keith said,

" **He thought he did nothing wrong. He always had a reason for it, man. Sometimes I think about what you said after you found out. I was a fucking idiot. I still feel like one. You don't do that when you love someone, but then why did we do it? The IAPP wasn't more important than us."**

But now there's  _love_ in Keith.

Love after a life of waiting for the right moment only to realize there will never be a right moment that isn't like losing another fucking limb. These two and their private, self-righteous world that never contributed to anything except a laundry list of interpersonal problems that almost wrecked the team.

You think,

_**FUCK YOU**_ **.**

You think,

_**I hope this explodes in both your fucking faces and that the orgasms are really good because this dishonest shit never ends well.** _

You think,

_**I'm a fuck up, but at least I'll tell that to anyone who asks**_ **.**

These two, though. Not them. Never them.

It's a caricature of self-blame and self-awareness that never has a gram of follow through.

Murdering a dictator's son and losing a leg doesn't automatically make you a good man. Walking with military posture and marrying an incredible woman when you've admitted you're gay doesn't make you a good man.

Marrying Allura isn't self-sacrifice.

Keith said,

" **Everything I did was because I loved him. We agreed, Lance."**

You think,

_**Are you sure about that, Keith? Because I can think of a thousand better ways to tell a man I love him. God knows I did it with you.** _

You're a pig and don't care, so you linger in the hallway and listen to them go at it like dogs. Shiro sounds good. He's into it, for sure. It's the guttural grunts. The honest, borderline whimpering that's relaxed, happy. You've likely made that sound, too. Sopping wet tentacles will do that to a dick.

Keith lets loose when he's in the headspace for it, too. You would've never included him in the screamer headcount, but he is husky and loud. The kind of loud that gets you caught having an affair.

Dumbass.

If you weren't so disgusted right now, then you might be turned on because they are studs. Too bad you  _are_ disgusted and also disappointed in their careless methods. It's Shiro and Keith. They could have shown a little propriety and at least waited for everyone to go to sleep before carrying out this un-Catholic act, but you guess "fleshpot" was destined to come back and haunt you. This is what you get for always being the funniest person in the room. Really, where's the fucking justice? You'll wait.

Nothing? Well, you wish you could say the radio silence is new. God hasn't answered in a while, but you figure he probably doesn't like the competition.

This is when you ask yourself if you're jealous, and you know the answer. You love Keith, but for who he is. Underneath his proud longing for Takashi Shirogane, there's a rare mineral, an actual person. Keith thinks he moves with Shiro's tides, but for years he exhibited a desire to do right with or without Voltron commanding his place in the universe. Keith set his boots on top of Shiro's footprints and filled them.

There, in that unlit hallway, your lungs balloon with water and burn. This is a swell, and like all surface gravity waves, it will also fall.

...which is wicked poetic and another gift you should learn to harness. The amount of wooing you could do with that line alone is daunting. Too bad you'll forget it in like five minutes tops. Maybe if you spent less time smoking the ever living shit out of hinter bush, then you could have an actual literary career.

Thankfully, you're loaded, so a new career would be a moot point.

Anyway, fuck Keith. Fuck Shiro.

"Don't stop," Shiro murmurs, over and over, evidently getting his ass pounded by tentacles while also drilling Keith through those brand new sheets you imported from Spain, Earth.

_Bastards._

You've heard them fuck before, but the tone is different now. Sex that doubles as a plea is the worst, but it's all Keith knows. He sucked your cock with knitted brows and reverence better left for a confessional booth, asking for some forgiveness and comfort no human could ever give him. Now he's asking Shiro to leave the universe behind. It's the sticky adoration that's performative for most, but never for Keith. He can't act. He's an open book the second you know him well enough to read between the lines.

When you think about Allura, you want to barge in and call her, give her the kinetic energy to get a divorce, but this isn't your cross to bear. Shiro is a guilty man. It'll bleed out sooner than later.

Keith whispers something about Shiro's dick feeling good. Porno-inspired babble aside, he did once tell you Shiro's dick made a Coke can look anorexic.

Fuck Shiro, again. Fuck him. Fuck off.

With your final fragment of dignity, you push away from the wall. The mattress continues to creak, skin slapping as tentacles slop. Keith's breathing claws higher.

This is a familiar fuck. They've been doing it for a while.

" _Lance, I can't stay here after this."_

" _You're his best man."_

" _Trust me. I'm not his best man."_

You want to know how you feel about them, but it's not a thing you can force. A quiet, nagging voice tells you neither man knows how he feels about the other. You wonder if that's what this is about.

If it is love, then you knew even less about it than you thought.

* * *

Okay, well, fuck this then.

If Keith's gonna bury Shiro's bone in his body, then you're gonna find a different kind of bone to pick with Keith. You've been a pushover long enough. Keith's secret world behind the Red Wing's goliath doors and behind Emperor Takashi's bedroom door is going to open its borders whether he likes it or not. You are the Blue Paladin, and he is nothing more or less than you as the Red one. Shiro isn't even that special. He can split time, but you can drown him in this blood.

When you let yourself into Shiro's private training suite, it's been less than a week since you heard them make the beast with two backs. Shiro is shirtless, toweling off sweat-drenched bangs, and Keith has left for the showers. This is a blessing. You might have hunted them down and caught them in the act again.

"If you think any harder your skull will crack," you say, striding forward with your bayard strapped to your back as a sniper.

Shiro nonchalantly tosses his towel. "The last thing I need is an incentive."

"Dark. I love it."

"You want something," Shiro says, unwrapping the supports on his flesh wrist. "What?"

There's no reason to sugarcoat here, so you don't.

"I won't pretend I know how you feel or even who you are anymore, Shiro, but I want to believe you can see why me, Hunk and Pidge not being involved in this war effort is a betrayal."

Shiro doesn't react because he knows you're not done. He continues to carefully unwrap the black bandaging, the method robotic. Clearing your throat, you dull your words and load the big gun. A metaphorical one, not the one on your back. Things haven't progressed to that yet.

"I did you a solid by moving out," you say, voice grave and chin level. "I left my feelings for Keith at the door, so now you owe me minimum respect in exchange. Support the paladins in the Red Wing."

"You're threatening me," Shiro says, not missing a beat while also still not looking at you.

"I am."

He laughs under his breath, shaking his head. "And you're threatening Keith."

"I knew the coin was two-sided before I came here, Shiro."

Shiro doesn't flinch. He doesn't contemplate. "Even if you're threatening me, you're doing it for the right reasons. From now on, we need everyone on the floor. It's Team Voltron, not Team Keith, Shiro and Allura. I'd talk to them myself, but I can't right now. Can you find Pidge and Hunk? Let them know."

"I can hunt them down today, but what about Keith?"

"Keith," Shiro says, exhaling with the name, "has done his part here. I don't think he'd object to including everyone. Allura will be worried about the wings being unbalanced, but we're always paladins first."

"You're telling me Keith won't object even though he made the combat plan without a word to any of us. Right. Speaking of unbalanced, communication between the wings has to get clearer."

"Trust me, Lance. I'm aware." Shiro flexes his hand. "It's a nightmare."

"Awareness doesn't mean anything if it's not acted on."

Shiro smiles at that and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. "Wise words."

Your lips curl, and you fold your arms, weight slanted onto a single foot. "Don't be smug about it, man."

"You would do better if you stopped inserting opinions into places you haven't been fully briefed on. Talk to me about specific issues and then judge me for how I rule."

"Take your own advice," you coolly counter. "Don't forget who I lived with for years. Floating through empty space for weeks on end gives people a lot of time to talk. I know what happened."

"Lance," Shiro warns, lifting his palm to stop you. "That was a leap. I'm not here to make this more personal than you already have. I care about what you say about the IAPP, not my love life."

What a condescending jackass.

"I kicked Keith's ass for you once, Shiro. We both know what he did, and why it sucked for you as much as he thinks it sucked for himself, but I'm not going to keep kicking ass for someone who won't learn how to help himself. You're too fair not to see what you're doing to everyone here. Including yourself."

"What Keith did," he murmurs, words tightening. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You and Keith have always been shit liars. He hurt you, too. Your whole life is a disaster, isn't it?"

Are you trying to crumble them by showing them both your sympathy cards and turn them against one another through self-validation? There's a chance. You dig another finger into the bullet wound.

"I have a feeling other people would think you're selfish, but you're not thinking about yourself here, Shiro. Don't let it get you again. If you're hurt, then let him know."

As much as you want that to be scathing, it falls flat. You're sad for everyone involved in this love hexagon. It's another case of people trying too hard to do the right thing. It really never gets you too far.

Shiro is too stunned to speak. He looks through you, thinking.

"Glad we had this talk," you say and turn on a heel. "I'm going to tell Pidge and Hunk they're now Red Wing members. Hunk is going to _love_  it."

"Lance," Shiro calls out. You stop before the door slides open. A harrowing pause rolls back and forth between you like a ball. Shiro inhales. "It's not a coin. Don't go looking for sides. There aren't any."

"It's love then. It's not nostalgia or sexual repression."

He clears his throat and speaks concise, calm. The sadness is unmistakable. "Nothing about Keith is nostalgic. I thought it might be, but he's different, and so am I. We know this about each other."

"Then get your shit together, Shirogane."

You leave the room, smoke on the verge of escaping your nostrils.

There are several things about the exchange that gives you watery indigestion, but its Shiro's calm and collected demeanor that runs through you. He didn't blink twice when you revealed you knew he was having an affair. As little as you now understand Shiro, he still has a decent scope of your person. You weren't even finishing threatening him, and he called your bluff only to utilize that call to elevate his power. There's no way you'd drag Keith through hell even if he deserves it, but Shiro also isn't stupid enough to challenge you while you're grinding teeth, so he gave you exactly what you wanted.

It benefits him, too. Shiro knows the paladins need to be a team again.

"Fuck," you whisper, sprinting down the Black Wing's back hall. You smack your hand against the elevator button and check your watch. "Fuck off."

There's nothing you can do about it, so you find Pidge and Hunk. It's by the grace of God their dots are together on the screen. Not wanting them to split apart, you send them a message to stay put.

 **HUNK:**  We're on break!

Pidge is swirling her spoon through what looks like butterscotch pudding when you find her and Hunk seated in the Yellow Wing's central cafeteria. It's bustling, tables endlessly scattered and employees shouting, laughing and gossiping at light speed. You caw at them and both glance up. Hunk waves his spoon, suspiciously squinting at you, and Pidge leans back, already bracing herself for a collision.

"You're sweating," Pidge says. "Why are you sweating?"

You spin a chair and take a seat on it backward. "How do you feel about joining the Red Wing?"

Hunk reaches for his cup and pointedly sucks air through the straw. Pidge plants her spoon in her dessert and folds her arms along the table, staring you down as if waiting for the punchline.

You drum your hands on your thighs. "I'm serious here."

"Shit," Pidge says, grabbing the table's edge and leaning back. "You're serious."

"Is this an idea or have you talked to Allura and Shiro to confirm it?" Hunk asks. "Because I know I joked about you sounding mutinous, but I wasn't encouraging you here."

"Shiro sent me to find you two," you explain and steal Pidge's pudding. You pop a bite between your teeth, slowly drawing your lips off the black biodegradable utensil. "He's handling Keith."

Pidge and Hunk stare one another down, and you realize they're using their telepathy. You would cut in on the conversation and make it a three-way call, but that's rude in a strange, invasive way.

Pidge breaks the silence after Hunk nods. "How long would we have to get our shit together? We can't just leave behind our wings tomorrow."

"Not to mention, I just got the green light for the sustainability expedition." Hunk tilts back his head and groans, rubbing his forehead. "Man, we were going to be on the other side of the planet for months, too."

You grab his bicep and take another bite. Chewing, you talk. "Look. This sucks. I know. My job with Allura is pretty good. I get to say a lot without getting any shit, but Keith's only as good as his support system. If we have to pilot the lions, then we deserve a voice that isn't just him being a ventriloquist."

"I know," Hunk grumbles. "You're right, but – "

Pidge interjects like a self-aware lightning strike. " – being avoidant feels good?"

That was the last thing you wanted to hear. You glance at your two teammates, trying to figure out whether or not that last bit was meant to be a joke. The fact you can't tell is unsettling.

"Shiro and Keith were not good role models for you two."

Hunk waves off the comment and sits back in his chair, shoulders sagging. "This was inevitable. I'll accept that. Tell Shiro I'm here for it. I'll feel guilty the second I see the first death toll if I don't."

"I'm glad the public can't hear us talk," Pidge grumbles but retrieves her pudding from you. "Fine. I'm down, too, but I need a week to get the Green Wing together. Also, the lion project is still mine."

"Fuck what we said while getting the lions." Dismounting the chair, you rise to your feet and dust off your thighs for no real reason aside from performativity. " _Now_  the team is back."

As you'd hoped, Keith is the last to know.

All day you waited for a livid message to pop up on your watch, but it never came. You don't see Keith again until minutes before dinner in the Blue Wing. You, along with the rest of the team, are lounging in the den, chatting about the nearing lion release when Keith strides in, entirely relaxed. Shiro is bouncing Ryou on his thigh, but Allura is still in a meeting. She's already told you she's likely missing dinner.

"Nice enthusiasm, Lance," Keith says, staring through you with trademark magma. "Hope it continues into tomorrow's 5 AM training."

You wonder if choking Keith would be unethical since he's not hiding the fact he's punishing you. Out of habit, you look to Shiro who is avoidant, paying attention to his son. Ryou is holding the Black Bayard.

It baffles you he even lets him. A lot of death has fallen on that weapon.

Hunk stares at the blue fire pit. "Anyone else getting flashbacks to Arus? No? Just me then? Well, they do say trauma is an individual experience."

Shiro laughs at Hunk's joke but tries to mask it. Hunk laughs because Shiro laughs at something so dark.

On a loveseat, Pidge falls onto her side and groans. "Keith, don't suck."

"Asking for a lot there, Pidge," you say, digging into an ear with your pinky. "Keith can't help himself."

Glowering, Keith cuts you a glare that would make Medusa writhe.

His expression relaxes when he spots Ryou. Keith approaches Shiro, but ignores the Black Paladin and squats in front of Ryou with a soft 'hey, lil guy.' Ryou reaches for him, expectant. Keith snorts and lifts the toddler from beneath his armpits. Standing, he sets him on his hip and thoughtlessly sways.

"Kitty," Ryou says, eyes brighter than Allura's. You've always wondered if the quintessence in Shiro's system impacted his DNA. "Kitty  _cat_."

Keith lets the nickname slide, deflating. He recovers. "I heard you started training with papa. Tell me all about it."

"Who would have thought Keith would be good with kids?" Pidge asks the room.

"I'm not," Keith murmurs, petting on Ryou's head as the toddler talks about his staff and how the gladiator was too slow. "I'm proud of you, bud. Ryou, can you call Uncle Lance a doofus for me?"

Ryou loves Keith, meaning he loves Keith's approval. "Doofus."

Keith cackles, ruffling his hair. Ryou repeats it, louder.

"Keith," Shiro murmurs, disapproving. "It's bad enough he heard Lance say C-U-N-T. I'd like to delay the derogatory vocabulary. It'll happen soon enough with you four around."

"Ah, lighten up, kitty cat," you say, winking at Keith. "Don't turn the baby against me because your tail bristled. I'm just trying to _feel young_  here."

As the reference dawns on Keith, his mouth slides into a softer frown. He kisses Ryou's forehead and hands him to Shiro even though Ryou protests, looking wholeheartedly insulted by this  _abandonment_.

Hunk inspects his nails, oblivious. "Belated, but was  _suck_  a double entendre? That was definitely a – "

Shiro the Hero cuts into the moment with a fierce look. "The new training facilities are done. We can meet there at 5 AM. It's safe to say we need team exercises more than ever."

"No kidding," Keith says and turns over his shoulder, breath uneven as he pushes over the back of his neck. "I have a shit ton of paperwork, so I won't be at dinner."

"Did you eat at all today?" Shiro calls after him.

Keith lifts a hand, waving him off. "It's fine, Shiro."

* * *

Mandated training before sunrise should warrant a backhand across the universe, but you're the one who won here. Team Voltron is back together, and Keith can kick and scream, but Allura agreed to it, too.

You rolled out of bed to a hell of a morning boost.

 **SHIRO:**  The paperwork is being pushed through tonight. I'll forge Keith's signature myself if I have to. This was the right call.

 **LANCE:** It would've happened no matter what.

 **SHIRO:**  Better it happens without tragedy prompting it.

 **LANCE:**  Implying it didn't?

 **SHIRO:** Leave it, Lance.

The nerve, really.

To be honest, it doesn't feel like a victory when you stumble into the new locker room with an unfinished cup of coffee and granola bar between your teeth.

You're late.

The display pods for armor and crystal waterfall shower heads won't impress you until you've finished your caffeine, but you don't have the time. You're late because 'fuck Keith,' but also because the snooze button isn't something even a reluctant god can resist if the bed is warm enough.

No one else is in the locker room when you arrive. Not a big deal. You expected as much, and surely, everyone else expected the same thing from you. Chugging your coffee, you dress with sleep-heavy arms and play music on your watch. You finish ten minutes late and rehearse a half-assed apology in your head while striding from the locker room toward the unused training arena with its Balmera crystal walls.

The tall double doors at the end of the hall are etched with lions flying in a circle. They wrench open onto incredible space. Right as you open your mouth to apologize, you weld shut your lips. Hunk is asleep on his back, Pidge is meditating in a corner, and Shiro is staring down his watch, concern aging his mouth.

Someone is missing.

It's the very heathen who made you drag your ass out of bed in the first place.

"Where's Keith?" you ask Shiro.

Shiro rolls his jaw and inhales. He doesn't look up from his watch. "I don't know. He won't answer. I was going to give it another five minutes before I went looking for him."

You lift your wrist and open the locater. Keith's red bullet isn't anywhere to be found, but that doesn't mean much. Pidge taught everyone how to go off the grid. The nifty trick is suddenly inconvenient.

"He's never late for training," you say, scratching your goatee. "When did you last hear from him?"

Shiro thinks but not long. "He was doing paperwork in his room before I went to bed."

Keith's red dot appears with a sharp ding. It's racing down the hallway toward the locker room, and you nod at Queen Karma for being benevolent and making Keith the asshole for once.

Shiro is unsettled, but it's hard to say why. "Go check on him, Lance."

"He's going to love that," you say, but you're already jogging backward, eager for Keith's excuse. You turn on a heel and make your way to the locker room.

You're not even finished striding through the door when you hear a familiar song. It's the crass melody of someone vomiting their brains out. Humor aside, the puking is violent, unrelenting. You come to a dead halt as the door slides shut behind you, wondering if Keith is losing his breakfast _and_  internal organs.

Knowing you need to act like a compassionate human being, you enter the narrow hall where the sinks connect into a long crystal trench. You find Keith leaned over the side, forearms settled on the rim. The water is on full blast to hide his gags and drench the smell, but there's no masking stomach acid's tang.

It's surreal to see the strong man with his bulked biceps lined by hard-won definition and ever-contained expressions bowed before a sink. He's shaking, miserable. Keith doesn't even vomit when on the verge of blacking out from drinking. He  _owns_  himself in an infuriating way that makes this scene flat pathetic.

"Hey, buddy," you say, approaching his side.

Keith coughs on a gag and uses his bare hand to swipe vomit down the drain. He attempts to catch his breath but lurches forward and vomits again. It's nothing but bile. If he ate, then whatever was there is long gone. A hissy Galra whine climbs his throat, and aching with empathy, you hold back his bangs.

"How long have you been vomiting?" you ask, hating how pale he is.

Keith shakes his head, breathing ragged. He burps. "All morning."

"It's only 5 AM. Have you slept?"

He doesn't answer, muscles tensing.

"Not to be your fucking mother, but there's no way you can train. Even if you stop puking up your soul, you're going to be dehydrated and need something to eat."

"I'm fine," Keith snaps, but the knife edge is dull. He fills his cupped hand with water, splashing it on his face. When he's clean, you drop his bangs and hand him a black towel. Keith mutters 'thanks.'

"Did you eat something weird?" you ask and lean against the wall. "Not hard to do around here."

"It's something that keeps happening," Keith admits. He sets aside the towel and grabs the sink again, leaning forward to gain his bearings. His head hangs. "I think it's a new stress response."

Closing your eyes, you want to ask an invasive question, but you can't go about it with a direct approach. The impact would break your ribs, not just his. "How long has this been going on?"

"Uhm – " Keith swipes a palm down his face. "A few weeks, I think. I noticed it around the time we got the lions. Hasn't stopped since. Might be the quintessence hitting me wrong."

Unlikely considering his tolerance is second to Shiro's post-astral plane fiasco.

You tear your eyes away from him. "Has food been smelling weird, too?"

"Half the reason I've felt like shit is because I can't drink coffee. The smell almost knocks me out now. I tried cream, sugar, anything to make it tolerable, but – "

"Headaches," you say, dragging out the final syllable. "Fatigue and emotional instability."

Keith stares at you, arching an eyebrow as if waiting for you to spit something out.

His watch beeps again, and he glances down at the message. Keith pinches his bridge, groans, and tears away from the sink to his armor pod.

"Shiro is riding my ass."

Boy, ain't he.

"Don't train today," you say, monotone. You trail him but have to sit down, so you unsteadily lower yourself onto one of the white floating benches between the lockers. Leaning over your knees, you slip your fingers into your hair. "Guess it's nice to know it's all the same whether or not you're Galra."

Really, how hard is it to use a condom?

Sure it was for diseases, but the two of you were  _careful_. There were times you'd go weeks without touching each other if you ran out of protection. Keith was confident he was sterile like a liger, but as if you'd run that kind of risk in space. He avoided discussing his technical biology, which was fair. The experience had been traumatizing, humiliating, but this is basic health.

Was he unaware? Keith might have never been around a pregnant person on Earth, but he wasn't an idiot. Even if you're off the mark, he's had to consider the possibility. Traditional Galra can breed with anyone.

Not that you're an expert on pregnancy, but some of your nieces and nephews were born before you left Earth. Your siblings weren't shy about complaining about pregnancy woes, and your mom didn't tolerate juvenile fears around the topic. Babies happened, and they were a blessing that could feel like a curse.

Shiro has to know. He's a  _father_.

Keith doesn't say anything until he tugs on his gloves. "What were you mumbling about over there?"

Before he can wait for your answer, Keith's watch beeps again. He fixes his bangs and pops a breath mint between his teeth. As he strides past you, Keith pushes back your head.

"Move it, Lance."

You'd punch him if he weren't in such a delicate state.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Please leave comments because I do read them and consider them each time I write another chapter. If you want to know about other ways to learn about my writing then find me on twitter @leecawrites and tumblr @ fenri.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a [PDF](https://drive.google.com/file/d/16uozbUF7xD-6Ea1XdLH2OPNf6S_BmUkE/view?usp=sharing) \+ [EPUB](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BolvJWpQokVu77tj5duQwirI2goDRMeP/view?usp=sharing) of what's happened in Picosecond so far. I've been asked to do this by a couple people, and I wanna make everyone's lives easier because I know my updates are big and far in between.

There was a point in your life when you thought those who ruin their own lives are only capable of doing so because they no longer care. Whether it's not caring about themselves or those around them, something is forgotten. Back then, you were young and idealistic. More than anything, you were clawing for the black and white in the good and bad. Not now, though.

Standing outside of the Alforis Cultural Learning Center and Museum, you care more than you've ever cared before in your life.

You care about yourself, you care about your friends, the man you love and his child. You care about New Altea, the IAPP, and whether or not the citizens of Alforis are being treated right. You care about so much, which is how you know how little you care about this fucking gala.

If the museum wasn't so goddamn important, if it wasn't born from the catalyst of every bad decision that forced you into the getaway ship with Lance, then you would rip off your overpriced formalwear with its stitched halter neck and lock yourself in the Red Wing to work.

The museum is eleven-stories high and impossibly narrow, coming to a lethal point that reflects the tri-sunset's confusing light spectrum. It was the final Balmera crystal structure erected in the city, and its blue windows were custom-fit to match its many facets. The ACLC pretends to be a single goliath of a rock, and it does so well, but you know it was built in parts, but you don't have the headspace to admire its architecture or note its symbolism. You're standing on a red carpet, and the shouts and prayers barreling from your admirers are over stimulating forces.

"Keith!" Shiro yells, gesturing at you with two fingers from the gate partitioning him from the crowd.

You want to hide out on the sidelines, blend in with the lesser war heroes and foreign royals you couldn't name if your life depended on it, but this is the Soller Gala.

Since your rash decisions conceived this event, you're being poked and prodded at from left and right. Hands want to shake yours, photographers want to sell your picture, journalists are clamoring on top of each other to steal a few words or a passive comment. You've been an enigma for years, so they're desperate for anything to dissect and feed to the gossip columns.

As accessible as you should be, if only to gain the public's favor for your war efforts, you believe cutting teeth would be less painful. This isn't an antisocial fit by any means. Rather, you have enough on your mind, and this gala is simply another bad reminder of your shit life choices.

If you were to be honest with yourself, then you'd go as far as to say it's a reminder of the biggest mistake you've ever made in your life.

Shiro calls for you again, but you pretend you don't hear him. Unfortunately, he knows better, and he strides toward, stunning in his black formalwear. Wordlessly, Shiro snatches the back of your neck like a lion redirecting a cub and ushers you to where he and the others are gathered.

"Pictures," he says, fighting his exasperation with a warm smile. "It's only a couple pictures, Keith. No one's asking you to give a confessional interview."

You grumble. "This is violence, Shiro."

"That's something else coming from a man who's had his leg chopped off."

"I love it when you're insensitive."

Shiro lowers his mouth to your ear. The fluffy point turns toward him, perked. When he speaks, it's a whisper. "If you didn't ask me to spit in your mouth once a week maybe I'd be able to tell whether or not you're kidding."

You pop your lips, smiling sly and then humming. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

He brushes his thumb along your neck before pushing you toward Lance and Pidge who are posed together, shameless in their blue and green attire. In the pictures that count, you stand to Shiro's right, arm casually balanced on his shoulder while Hunk appears on your left. Allura keeps to Shiro's left when she can, but mostly, she's busy indulging hard news journalists, willingly addressing as many questions as she can with a diplomatic ease the war conditioned you away from. Unless you're on the battlefield or at the war table, you don't trust yourself to speak.

When Shiro is satisfied with the number of photos you've taken, he joins Allura. His occasional laughter filters through the cacophony, and you can't help but want him near you.

"How's the sickness been?" Lance asks, grabbing your bicep and drawing you close to pose. Clicks and flashes hammer away, and he drapes an arm around your shoulders. "I didn't see you in the Black Wing after training this morning, and as usual, you haven't answered my texts. I'm telling you. Those snack comet Funyuns you've been gorging yourself on can't be helping."

You muss your bangs and cock an eyebrow before you stare down the cameras. "About that. I was sleeping off a vomit marathon."

Lance glances at you. It's grave but passes quickly. "Don't make me drag you to the Green Wing. At some point, you have to acknowledge what's going on here."

"I'm stressed out," you say and pointedly ignore the cloaked Red Paladin cult hovering along the red carpet. "Any job that forgets you're mortal does that."

"Tell me you're kidding."

Having clearly missed a cue, you furrow your brow at Lance. He doesn't shy away from matching your expression now that you've given him your undivided attention. The staring competition lasts too long, but you're not challenging him. You're waiting for him to piece the puzzle together for you. He blinks as if realizing something and whistles, eyes drifting away.

"Man," Lance murmurs. "Man, let's head inside."

"Are you okay?" you ask and grab his wrist with a distinct smack. His fingers curl around your wrist in response. The intimacy isn't like you two anymore. "You've been kind of off."

Lance doesn't dismiss you. He does something bolder, which is wrap his arm around your waist and bring you close to his side.

"I'm peachy keen, baby. Don't worry your handsome head."

He doesn't want to talk, so you don't pry. "You don't make it easy."

"You have  _no_  room to talk, Keith."

Together, you climb the ACLC's grand entrance, a sprawling crystal staircase that leads to two towering glass doors. As the two of you step through, the doors collapse into glittering dust.

"Try to go light on the booze," Lance suggests, refusing to look at you and feigning distraction by focusing on the crystal lobby and its elaborate decorations. "Maybe don't drink at all."

You scoff. "Like I'm getting through this night sober. This whole event feels like one big condescending reminder that I ruined our lives."

"Not everyone feels that way," he reminds you. "To the majority of the universe, you did a pretty noble thing. It's shit luck it screwed over the people you have to work with."

Lance says work, but he knows better. Had he replaced the word with love, then it would all be the same. Actually, it'd be more accurate.

"They didn't hold back with this place," you say, eyes roaming along the mural on the ceiling. It's a spacescape war scene pre-dating the Galra War. Planets twinkle and spasm between shuddering archaic ships and intermingling species, making Michelangelo seem primeval. "The Louvre feels kind of elementary."

There are halls upon halls of galleries to wander through. Each features a culture lost to Zarkon's genocide, bringing to light both the horror of his conquests and diversity of the known universe. With Lance at your side, you linger through several of the exhibits. You read plaques, watch commemorative videos, and admire art and holographic tomes and scrolls, and you're relieved you're with Lance and not Shiro. You can imagine Shiro wondering if this was worth it.

Yes, you think. You believe it was. You believe Shiro thinks so, too. Even if the resentment hasn't been put to bed, you could never take this back.

Worth it or not, it doesn't stop hurting, but you've given up negotiating the pros and cons. No matter how sensible the choice was in the grand scheme of the universe, you still ache.

Selfish thinking, but also, human thinking.

"We'll have to spend a whole week on this place to see everything," Lance says after an hour of meandering and digesting knowledge. "Everyone should be in by now. Let's find cocktail hour."

Cocktail hour is discovered on the second floor in an exhibit hall lined with ancient statues that make  _Laocoön and His Sons_  a macaroni craft. Floating sculptures of creatures with forms varying from the tentacle snakes to an eight-armed arachnid with six humanoid torsos and faces that are all mouth and teeth sit stark white against the hall's navy wallpaper. As terrifying as some of the creatures are, you pause to read their histories, finding yourself humbled by their advanced technologies, abstract and near-incomprehensible philosophies, and extinct languages.

Upon realizing the arachnid is male, your tentacles rustle and slicken. You cough into a tight fist and turn toward the nearest server, snatching a champagne flute. Lance is gone, but you chug it.

"Still not over those threads, Keith," Hunk says, appearing beside you.

Lance probably sprinted at the sight of Hunk with his chest hair out. He's weak for it and trying his best to behave, but that's difficult for Lance. Then again, only a lesser man wouldn't be weak for Hunk at this point. You eye his chest, remembering how you banned Shiro from waxing his only a month ago, and then lift your stare. Hunk smiles at you, knowing, and you smile back.

"Yeah," you say and lift your arms, showing off the elaborate embroidery along the detached sleeves. "It's more than I'm used to."

Hunk nods, pretending to read the plaque. "Shiro picked it out."

Your arms snap down. "He was a  _consultant_ , not the last word. I did a lot over the past few years. Learning how to dress myself was one of them."

"The past few years," Hunk distantly echoes. He inspects your features. "Keith, can I say something that I think we've all sort of obviously avoided saying today?"

"Uh –" As if you can refuse him. "Sure."

"What you did with the Oahxian was the right thing."

His words knock you breathless. It's an emotional punch to the solar plexus, and you have to set your drink down on a nearby table.

"Hunk –" You lift a hand, but he lifts one back, stopping you.

"No one else would've gone that far," he says, scratching his jaw and exhaling with his whole body. "Like, okay. Cool. I get that I can say that because it didn't directly hurt me. Well, maybe it did a little bit, but Lance wasn't with me by the time it went all fork-in-garbage disposal. He probably would've left anyway. What I'm getting at here is, when I think about how you saved an archive of universal history because you were willing to take a beating no one wanted but would've had to take anyway, I want to thank you. Me and Pidge, we talk about this shit show a lot, you know? How ridiculous it is we got spiteful over something that was totally inevitable."

He's well-meaning, but you refuse to cut yourself slack. "I didn't ask for permission."

"I was at that dinner, man. I remember what happened. The clock was ticking, and if you're good at one thing, then it's following your lizard brain. You knew what you had to do. We all did."

The Oahxian or the greatest archivists in the universe. Barely a people and more like sentient clouds of consciousness, you're almost certain they're what humans once mistook for God.

"I've tried not to think about it," you confess, crossing your arms over your chest.

Hunk smiles, sympathetic and embarrassingly gentle. "I'm giving you permission to think about it, minus the flogging."

"Did you notice the Oahxian aren't here?"

"Trust me, man. They always are."

 _Think about it without the flogging_ , you tell yourself, eyes roving along the thickening crowd and its eclectic fashion of glowing and floating material.  _Think about it._

_Allura ran her fingers through her hair and gripped, makeup streaked and dried. "There has to be a way for them to see reason, Coran. This isn't civil in the least."_

" _I'm sorry, Empress," Coran whispered and topped off his drink, expression funerary. "The Oahxian would have only agreed to it under these terms. The best we can do is hope this union serves their interests until and then renegotiate it when stability is proven."_

" _It's archaic!"_

During the formation of the IAPP, it was crucial for you and the others to collect a specific subset of allies to sway the majority. The Oahxian had two things no one else had, which were much of the universe's histories and relics from planets long lost to genocide.

There was great sentimentality involved in the recovery of that history, but the main reason the IAPP wanted the Oahxian on its side was because knowledge is power. With the Oahxian's infinite fountain of resources, people would support the IAPP even if only to access ancestors.

It was more than that, though. Not having the Oahxian on the IAPP's side meant that if they aligned with an opposing force, such as the rebels, the IAPP faced a death sentence. The Oahxian had been neutral during Zarkon's reign, exchanging knowledge for quintessence, but they weren't an unreasonable people. Intergalactic peace over quintessence would only benefit them.

Like so many others, they didn't trust the IAPP to fulfill its promises.

Their primary reason was it had a flimsy foundation. Considering the paladins had only been attached to one another through Voltron and Voltron was to be put inside a vault, the Oahxian didn't feel the paladins were unified enough to commit to the IAPP's growing laundry list.

There needed to be a glue.

Unfortunately for Allura and the many humans in that meeting, the Oahxian knew the full history of human and Altean politics. A traditional monarchy was historically the most secure platform. Dynasties were built on the backs of marriages, after all. The Oahxian agreed the term 'monarchy' would cause chaos among those who had just been freed from Galra reign, so a mixed government leaning toward democracy was best, but still, there wasn't an amalgamating factor among the paladins that could endure years. Friendship, they said, wasn't enough. When they brought this to everyone's attention, you considered the most obvious choice.

You would marry Shiro.

In a hail of political bullets, this was shut down before you make the suggestion.

Even if you were the co-leader of Voltron, Allura was the face of the IAPP, the one who had spoken during telecasts and beat her fists during meetings. Not to mention, you were Galra.

You said the obvious before you could stop yourself.

" _Then it'd make sense for Shiro to marry Allura."_

" _Agreed, Commander Keith. That would be the preferable arrangement. With Empress Allura and a paladin like Shiro leading the IAPP under a hard-wearing social and legal contract, we would have little reason to find ourselves concerned about the alliance's stability."_

The Oahxian knew political marriages weren't about love. They knew, upon looking back on Earth and Altea, that a marriage could unite countries and even planets for thousands of years, and most importantly, maintain order. So drenched in logic, none of the Oahxian Council thought to ask if Shiro and Allura loved others. Emotional collateral wasn't once considered.

Love was irrelevant in the grand scheme of the universe. Love between two people was simply a lost molecule, a dust mote wandering the windowsill.

When the words left your mouth, Shiro looked at you like you had shot him, and you guess you sort of did. The man had suffered enough, but there you were, gunning him down once again.

You, Shiro's protector, and Shiro, your protector.

_Et tu, Brute?_

That night, Shiro screamed at you. It was the first time he ever had, and seated on your shared bed, face in hanging in your hands, you knew in your heart it would be the last.

" _Do you know what wife means, Keith?"_

" _It can be an act! We need that alliance!"_

" _I still have to have children with her. They Oahxian are intel collectors, Keith. We'll never be able to fake a marriage the way you'd want us to. Did you think Allura and I hadn't considered that option? The Oahxian are dangerous! Farthest end of the universe or not, they're omnipresent tyrants that even Zarkon and Honerva never bothered to try and conquer!"_

" _They were going to leave!"_

" _I wanted a real life with you! I wanted a home with you! Children! We've talked about having children! We designed a bed for it! Keith, we were engaged!"_

_Wanted, not want._

_Were, not are._

" _Shiro, are you leaving me?"_

Shiro and you were going to announce your engagement after the contractors broke ground on Balmera Palace, but the idea fell into oblivion. Allura took the engagement in stride, acquainted with the idea of arranged marriages while not being exactly enthusiastic. She was duty bound, and so was Shiro, but you were furious. He played the part too well. He didn't blink courting her.

Then you saw him kiss her.

Your history of willful self-sacrifice would say otherwise, but it was the one and only time you considered cutting your own throat. You didn't want to die for a cause or others.

You simply wanted to die.

"Keith," Hunk says, crashing into your train of thought. "Look around us, buddy. This is all possible because of you. There are people here tonight who thought their history was lost forever, but now they have free access to a catalog of universal knowledge. It's amazing."

Though your throat is tight, you steady your words. It's hard to look at him. "No one's put it like that before."

"Let's just say my head has always been a little bigger than my heart."

He swings an arm around your shoulders and presses his temple against yours, laughing. It's a sad sound, but being held by someone feels good considering how cold those memories still are. You shouldn't have done it, but all you wanted was to do right by those who were searching for themselves and the things that'd been taken away from them due to terrible timing and chance.

You of all people would know what it's like to not know your history.

"No matter what happens, Keith, you're my family. Don't forget that."

More capable of reading the room than he once was, Hunk changes the topic and walks with you from statue to statue, adding tidbits about agricultural and culinary history.

You're smiling at one of Hunk's sarcastic jokes when Sendak approaches. Once you were apprehensive about him acknowledging you in public, but now you could care less. He's a political figurehead who can sympathize with the Galra that weren't keen on losing their empire. If anything, Sendak keeps the pseudo-Galra embassy inside Balmera Palace pacified.

"Might I have a word with Commander Keith?"

Hunk nails you with a questioning look, ready to read your concern. You shrug, lifting a palm that faces the ceiling. Hunk suspiciously side eyes Sendak.

"Uh –  _yeah_. Keith, if you need me, then I'll be by the suspended bird squid over there."

Sendak waits for Hunk to drift into the crowd. When he's out of earshot, Sendak offers his arm. It's a strange gesture, something you're not accustomed to between two men of any species, but you take the bionic arm and let him walk you far away from the crowd.

"You have a plan then?" Sendak asks, voice muted and cautious.

As you always do with him, you carefully pick your words. "I have a lot of plans. Specify."

He clears his throat. "A plan for the cub, I mean."

A long pause lingers as you attempt to understand what he's referencing. You keep Ryou out of your politics, and any children in the palace steer clear of your path. Eventually, something clicks into place. It's the only possible thing, but you're not sure how Sendak would know. Shiro, Pidge, and you are the only people who know about Lance's love child on Vogriri.

"Shiro and I are handling Lance's child," you say, glancing to the side. "It's not going to get in the way of us protecting New Altea. We're good strategists."

"Commander," Sendak snaps. He's bristling, which makes you bristle, but Sendak doesn't withdraw. "Forgive me for speaking plainly, but considering you've expressed interest in the emperor title, it's only appropriate we acknowledge your pregnancy."

You narrow your eyes. "What did you just say?"

"In the empire, it was common for our generals to terminate pregnancies during active duty. Addressing a pregnancy before public announcement was considered a social faux-pas punishable by death, but since you've allowed yourself to enter the coat change phase, it appears you're leaning toward keeping the cub. I congratulate you, but I need to know your plan. As Galra gestation can last up to ten of your Earth months and is subsequently followed by being a caretaker for one's egg, it puts our war initiative in a precarious place with ambiguous stability."

 _Pregnant_. He thinks you're pregnant.

If Sendak wasn't so grave, then you would laugh in his face. Try as you might, you can't help but smirk. You've heard some downright ridiculous shit before, but this one takes the cake.

"Sendak, I'm not –" The word is almost too humiliating to even say. "I'm not  _pregnant_. You've been visiting the wrong rumor mill."

"What do you know about Galra pregnancies?"

A fat sack of nothing, but you'd like to think you'd know whether or not you were pregnant.

"Sendak," you say, still haughty. "Come on."

He stares, hard. "Keith, this  _will_  require decisive action and soon."

Sendak's words are a winter river, and you realize he thinks you're playing dumb. As your wry smile fades, your blood pressure spikes. You lick a fang and offer a stiff 'huh.'

"I'm not," you repeat. This time it's stern. "It's a hormonal imbalance caused by stress. I've changed appearances under pressure before, Sendak. Don't tell me about my own body."

This doesn't placate him.

"I would advise an appointment with a physician in the Green Wing." Sendak's eyes flit to your stomach and you imagine turning your skin inside out. "Some words of advice, Commander. Don't lift another champagne glass tonight. You look like a fool, and people are whispering."

People are whispering.

Jaw falling, you watch him bow. "One can only hope your mate of choice is of a satisfactory alliance. A paladin's child is no minor thing these days. Good health, Commander."

Sendak dismisses himself with a final once over. You close your mouth and consider calling after him, but there's no reason to. Anyway, your brain is hemorrhaging thoughts, piecing together symptoms and strange behaviors that betray you to Sendak's presumptuous opinions.

But you're not pregnant. The odds of that happening have always been fairly slim to none. Coran did a full examination after the quintessence spill and your changes no longer reversed.

Hunk sidles back up to you, leaning in and whispering behind a hand. "What was that about?"

"Some people can't leave business in the Red Wing," you mutter. "Let's go find our seats. I could eat an entire Qumnojmo."

You may not be pregnant, but while seated beside Shiro during dinner, you don't touch a single glass of wine. After a speech you don't hear, you only pretend to sip. The speech honors you. This entire gala is technically honoring you, but from Sendak's conversation and on, your brain is a wind tunnel that can't process the very grandeur you've found superfluous since the start.

"Something's on your mind," Shiro says, running his knife through the bioluminescent meat. It pulses magenta gel, and if you stare at it long enough, you can see blood snaking through its soft veins. They're more tender than they appear. "You haven't said a word all night."

You tap the rim of your floating water glass. "When isn't there something on our minds?"

"Fair enough, but you can talk to me, Keith."

"I know," you say, apologizing with your tone.

The table you're seated at dwarfs the Balmera Palace banquet hall, and the end you and Shiro are on is isolated. Allura is across the table, speaking candidly with Lance and Coran. Pidge, Hunk, and Matt are writing formulas on their tablets together, laughing with noses flush from drinking too much. Other conversations are swelling and drowning out any sound that isn't a reach away.

It helps you speak.

Your eyebrows lift and drop, and you exhale. "People are gossiping."

Shiro stops cutting and matches your expression, still looking at his meal. "Gossiping."

"It's not about us," you quickly reassure him. Shiro doesn't react, having steeled himself either way. "But Sendak believes what he's heard."

"Do you want to tell me what people are saying?"

"I don't want to plant seeds, but if you hear anything that's condemning and not from me, then don't believe it, Shiro. I'd tell you if anything serious was going on."

"You're being cryptic," he says and turns toward you, scanning your face with that manipulative gentleness. It's open and plain and makes you want to return the favor. "It must be serious if you're mentioning it. We've heard rumors about each other since the Voltron coalition."

"Talking about rumors gives them power."

"Talking could also help you destress."

"Stop playing therapist, and stop being so good," you say, turning your head and scratching your neck. "It's annoying when I'm trying to avoid my feelings."

Shiro props his chin on a palm. "That was self-aware."

He's so condescending, but it's in a way that makes you want to press your mouth to his, but that'll have to wait. From his body language and tone alone, it's obvious he's going to check in with you after everyone's home and tucked into their beds. You can't wait. Recently you've ached for him in a way that's wholly physical. It's the bone kind of ache. It's marrow deep.

"You look good," you tell him. "The chest hair was a good choice."

"Allura might wax it in my sleep."

"She better play it smart, Shirogane. We're already on the brink of one war."

When dinner is over, the gala unfolds into a party that reminds everyone the IAPP is under the thumb of rapid youth. Many older politicians take their leave before the music bleeds out over the gallery floors. Rather than escape with the geriatric exodus, you linger behind with Shiro who couldn't have left even if he begged Allura for the evening with Ryou.

"Dance with me?" Shiro asks as Pidge shoves him toward the dancefloor.

You lift your water. "Later."

With fanfare and in a bit of a whirlwind, Lance becomes the center of the party. You watch him swallow the glory in mouthfuls while you linger by tables, smiling above a glass of water and watching the way he strides through the crowd, flirts with anything that'll glance at him. That strange, isolating feeling you had during dances at the orphanage gnaws at your throat and burns.

Lance dips Allura, and when he looks at her, a spark of familiarity nudges you. Long ago, back when you believed you might escape the life you're living now, he looked at you that way.

Your intestines play cat's cradle.

To stave off the ache, you drift away into the nearest gallery, brain caught up in Sendak's accusation like some hopeless cycle without a disruptive cog in sight. Your eyes aren't consuming anything, but your heart is cannibalizing itself at the thought of being a parent. People like you don't become parents. They were never given that guide of prerequisites so many else seem to own, and the last thing you want to do is fuck up another unnecessary soul.

In this day and age, parenting feels selfish and excessive, but you're still drawn to the concept enough to not hate everything it could offer. A family of your own would be nice.

A voice like a lark's reels through the gallery.

"Keith," Allura says, breathless. "There you are! We thought you left!"

Looking over your shoulder, you see her red-faced and smiling with full teeth. Her eyes are alive, wild with warm feelings. Your self-loathing nudges you, but you set it aside.

You smile back. "I saw you dancing out there."

"Lance wouldn't let me out of it. He's as lively as ever. I was hoping Fleshpot would slow him down, but I don't think he knows the meaning of slow."

"There's a reason he can pilot Red, too."

Allura walks deeper into the gallery and the lights on her train shift, a million galaxies glittering along a glossy black floor. Her smile is drifting, but it's not dissolving into sadness. She's thoughtful, pondering your company, and it's then you feel yourself in the presence of an empress you would proudly kneel before. She's imposing, masterful, and you could take a knife to the rib for betraying someone who has lost as much as you and wanted more than you ever could. Her glittering shoulders shift beneath the golden can-lights, and you think that maybe she's more than a reigning empress with a platinum heart. She could be a star-drifting goddess.

Everything. You want to take back everything.

"This exists because of you," she says, carefully picking her words. "I know it might not feel like much now. I know it caused terrible problems and loss between everyone, but I wouldn't take this back, Keith. What we've done here is the right thing. I wish the others saw it that way, too."

You shrug as if it's the slightest problem in the universe. "Hunk sees it as a good thing, too."

"Hunk is a pragmatic man. It amazes me he was able to marry Lance."

"Lance can be pragmatic," you say, staring down a painting of a species made of bright kaleidoscopic eyes that shimmer and blink. "Sometimes I think he makes more sense than I do."

Allura hums at that, sighs and then smiles. "I want you to be happy, Keith."

"Is it obvious I'm not?"

Allura hooks her arm with yours. Petting your hand, she rests her head on your naked shoulder and watches the painting alongside you. A swollen pause sits between you both, but eventually, you turn your head and bury your nose in her lush hair, closing your eyes and gritting teeth because things were never supposed to be like this. A piece of you wants to believe she never knew how much you loved Shiro or how much you miss him with every waking breath, but Allura isn't a fool. The only foolish mistake she's ever made is believing you were responsible enough to let Shiro go for the betterment of the universe.

Had she been paying attention, then she would've known that if there's one thing you cannot do, then it's let Shiro go. You will fall with him. You will crash and burn like his goddamn Icarus.

"We should go dance," Allura suggests. "It'll lighten the mood."

Your ears flick toward the music. "This song is too slow."

Allura retracts and grabs your hands, guiding them onto her slim waist. "We can dance here until it picks back up and join the others after."

"Slow dancing." You groan but let her lead the way. "I can't slow dance, Allura."

"It's never too late to learn a thing or two now, is it?"

Allura teaches you the steps, and for her, they're second nature. It takes a couple seconds of you fumbling, a joke considering the dexterity you have while fighting, but the rhythm finds you.

In that open gallery, a regular collection of lost souls, you drift together. Neither one of you thinks to talk, but you also don't try to access the other's thoughts either. It's private.

"We'll be okay," she promises, breath warm against your throat. "Keith, this isn't forever."

Allura says it's not forever, but you can't remember when  _this_  started. For you,  _this_  is life as life is, something that's standard fare. There's a war among the countless planets, and there's a war being fought between every emotion you've had and every choice you've ever made.

" _This_ is a lot of things we can't make change."

"You'll find a way out of it. You always do."

The music changes.

"Enough sadness for tonight." Allura steps back, but doesn't let go of your hand. Instead, she tugs you toward the door. "Let's go find Shiro and make him dance!"

You're both so young and free, but so old and contained.

With Allura leading the way, you run like children toward the whirling crowd in the center of the dancefloor. Your friends greet you like orbiting planets, reaching for your biceps and tugging you in for a spin. As Allura predicted, you laugh and the weight of your heart evaporates.

_Keith, this isn't forever._

* * *

You plan to make a medical appointment after the next war table meeting in the Red Wing. If only to find a medication that will shut down rumors and force Sendak to grovel at your feet.

You have more important things to worry about than stress sickness turned pregnancy rumors. There's a war in the works that could sabotage your friendship with Lance, you and the other paladins have all integrated into the Red Wing, and then there's the New Altea refugee situation.

The third predicament on that list is your favorite to deal with, but admittedly, it's for selfish reasons as much as it's for the humbling experience of seeing war victims stand tall.

If planned well enough, you and Shiro can escape Balmera Palace for Alforis. Restaurants sneak you in through backdoors and hide your vehicles, but if you want to feel like real people enjoying one another, then you take to the refugee villages where you spend afternoons building homes, listening to the people's complaints and concerns, and then drinking and eating food that feels like home cooked meals and not something manufactured in the Yellow Wing cafeteria.

When the paladins first started this line of work, you were busy with the Marmora, a regular mystery to the people, but you've made up for that and continued to do better as a public figure. It's the kind of hard labor you prefer, an experience that's more tactile than signing documents and drumming your fingers in a boardroom, hoping that in six months your thoughts might start fixing something you hate. Outside, using actual muscle and material, you feel like change is happening at a much faster pace. It sounds simple, but in many ways, you are very simple.

"How are the rumors going?" Shiro asks above his plate of food. He's shirtless, gleaming with sweat, and looking past you at that day's in-progress builds.

Construction tools like colossal laser guns are shooting organic stakes into the dirt, shaking the ground beneath your feet. Individuals of all species are gathered to work through the sticky air only tolerable due to the nearby ocean breeze. The discord of hammering and branches cracking and weaving together forces you to lean in close to Shiro so he can hear you.

Also, you like how his sweat smells. This isn't a new thing, but it's amplified over the past couple weeks.

You take a bite, rolling your eyes. "Haven't heard much else. Wouldn't surprise me if Sendak saw it shut down himself. He doesn't like ugly alliances."

"People love to talk, but it's never about the things that are worth talking about."

"No kidding." Looking over your tanned shoulder, you follow his line of sight. "Think we can get seven of them done today?"

"If we haul ass," he says but doesn't sound hopeful. "I want to get those kids out of tents tonight. Even if some families have to double up for a few weeks, it's better than nothing."

"All the resources in the universe and this is still taking eons."

"There's a lot of red tape. We put up walls in an attempt to keep our power checked and balanced, but it's days like these I regret it."

"Thought you didn't like being a monarch," you say, chewing and keeps your eyes low.

Shiro darts his gaze at you, sharp and discerning like you're another new blood ambassador beating his fist against Red Wing doors. He has no time for this kind of talk.

"I don't, but what the IAPP is doing here isn't working either. We can't build a world in twenty years without better, more streamlined, support. We need to find an answer to this, but everyone is distracted by rebels, imports, and now, a possible war. I can't get a solid focus out here."

Realizing your error, you set aside your fork and reach for his bicep, offering him an apologetic stare.

"Sorry, Shiro. You're right. It's just – I don't know. Looking at kids who once had homes under Galra reign and then trying to explain to them why living on the bare minimum is better for them, in the long run, isn't easy. It makes me hate the palace. We're not better than these people, and I don't like how we elevate ourselves to seem better than them."

Shiro leans back against the bustling food shack. He closes his eyes and breathes in, meditative. "I don't either."

"We're just lucky the palace is a public sector," you add, letting your hand fall from Shiro for the nearby water pouch you're sharing. "Fleshpot is more incriminating."

Shiro laughs at the casual usage of  _Fleshpot_. He always does. "We've had our fun there, too. It makes us as guilty as Lance and everyone else who goes there."

Playing coy, you sip hard from the straw. "Fun is an understatement."

"Might need some fun after this," Shiro says, tone fair weather.

Unable to look at him, you lift and drop your shoulders. "Can't do that kind of fun tonight, but you could help me with some paperwork at the palace after this. No pressure, though."

"It'll take my mind off other things, but only after we shower first."

If anyone was listening, the  _we_  could be heard as a general  _we_ , but you know better. You spend the rest of the day dripping sweat together, redirecting branches and pushing metabolites from muscles. Seamlessly, you match Shiro's tempo, and when the time comes, he doesn't mind to meet your workhorse pace halfway. When you zone out, he teases you.

With Shiro's bionic arm resting on your shoulder, you review schematics, blueprints that cover impossibly long drafting tables. Penciling in thoughts, you think as fast as you can, wanting to get seven of those houses done, wanting to watch mothers steer their children through doors.

You chew through clipped words in languages you barely know and only let the translator step in when absolutely necessary. When you need to listen, you listen, but mostly, you build.

The suns are long gone and the beaming field lights are drawing in moths the size of cardinals when the seventh house is given its final coat of sealant. Shiro is behind you, cracking his neck and grinning, as the contractors sign off on a thorough inspection that lasts through dinner.

"Not bad," Shiro says after watching the families slip from their tents and appear on the edge of their new properties.

"Can I turn in my two weeks and do this instead?" you ask, flexing your tired fingers and turning to walk toward Shiro's bike.

"You're so happy here I'm half tempted."

The adrenaline rush is only amplified when you slide behind Shiro on the hoverbike. Still shirtless due to your tank being muddied and drenched in sweat, you grab Shiro's hips. The engine turns over and the invisibility cloak whips over the vehicle, but Shiro doesn't accelerate. He turns in his seat instead and cups both sides of your face, drawing you closer.

"They know we're still here," you warn him.

"We've got a minute before it's conspicuous."

Shiro pulls you in and kisses you, mouth opening on contact. You slide your arms around what you can of his torso and kiss back. You furrow your brow, eyes shutting and expression serious.

"You were impressive today," he murmurs against your mouth.

"Here I thought I couldn't do much more to impress you."

Shiro kisses your chin and brushes his lips down your throat, mouthing your clavicles. "Don't make it sound like you ever stopped."

You slip your fingers into Shiro's hair and tilt your head, staring past the bike and at the halo of blue light radiating from the distant Balmera Palace.

"Take us home."

Dirt-smeared and shoving each other as you passively greet the hangar staff, you and Shiro stride toward the Blue Wing, turning off your watches at the exact same time. Fervency opens her arms to you both, and you leap into the hormonal embrace. The need to be together is unbearable.

"Eager, Shiro?"

You're walking backward into your bedroom with Shiro pressing a palm against your chest, he laughs when he urges you to move faster. You laugh too, shucking off boots and pausing between stripping socks to press him against the nearest wall. Shiro touches you just to touch you, fingers scouting your ribs and wiping a hand along your tightening navel. You kiss him.

"I love you," you say because here you can.

Here you can say anything.

"I love you," he answers in between kisses, so honest with that a smile that once made you believe in your wildest dreams.

"Show me how much."

"Keith, wait," Shiro suddenly says, tilting his head to look past you. He tightens his lips in what you know is judgment. "Your bed is a disaster."

Grabbing his chin, you try to redirect him. "We'll deal with that after we shower. Stop critiquing my bed like you're doing room checks at the Garrison."

"Is that the shirt I've been looking for tied around a pillow? And Funyun bags? Keith –"

You push at his waistband, laughing again. "I'm going to get off alone if you don't stop."

"Fine," Shiro says, tearing his eyes away from the mess. Without a warning, he reaches beneath your thighs, and after you grab his shoulders, he lifts. "Moving on."

Moving on is tugging Shiro's shirt overhead in between him sucking bruises onto the surface of your shoulders. Moving on is Shiro letting your tentacles jerk him off while you sit on the sink, leaned back against the mirror and finding sick satisfaction in Shiro watching himself get off.

He's so pretty when being fucked. You want to let him know, but he can't handle that kind of praise.

"Keith, fuck," Shiro whispers. "Slow down."

Shiro plants his hands on either side of your thighs, gripping the vanity's edge. He sucks air through his teeth and powerfully fucks the constricting appendages, moaning hard from his chest. More tentacles slip out at the sound, and glowing secretion drips down your calves and onto his stiff cock. His velvet skin against your tentacles makes your breathing catch, and your head falls back against the glass. Shiro notices, encircles fingers around one, and he strokes hard.

Shiro clears his throat. "Babe, you're soaked."

This isn't horny praise. It's fact. Usually, when wet, it's more of a runny wax that quickly coagulates, but this is dripping off your heels, creating actual puddles that could splash.

"Yeah," you murmur, fucking into his hand. You push your fingers into your hair and groan, ragged and breathless. "Yeah, I know."

Shiro doesn't wait long to get you on your back. Lying along the shower bench with Shiro comfortably settled between your thighs, you ignore how the wet stone surface digs into your bones. All you want is one person, your person, fucking you until screams knock your teeth.

When Shiro slips inside your warm wet, your tentacles rustle and worship him, brushing his thighs and praising his presence with comforting squeezes. It's humiliating.

"Happy to see me?" he asks, already bucking.

You draw back your knees and nod, rocking against him. "Always."

Legs open and gasps heaving from your chest, you press your nails into his muscle-slated hips and roll back your shoulders, unconsciously lifting yourself into a curve. He's taking you there, the in-out thrusts strong and battering your channel until it spasms each time he retracts. The room is soundproof, so you don't mute yourself, refusing to fight the throaty groans and pleasure found in screaming Shiro's name when he brutalizes one of your internal nerve bundles.

"Shiro," you beg, water pelting you both. "Oh my god, Shiro."

Shiro groans against your throat, working you deeper, turning your cunt into a mess. " _Keith_  –"

There's this void in you that wasn't there before. Not an emotional one, but it's physical and lingering right behind your pelvic bone. Shiro can fuck you, fist you, make you sob, but there's no reaching the dull pulse that opens and closes like flexing knuckles. In the heat of the moment, it morphs you into a desperate animal that claws and constricts Shiro's thighs with tentacles.

"Don't hold back," you order, lips moving against the corner of his mouth.

Shiro shoves your bionic leg until it reaches your ear, and your hand smacks onto his mechanical arm, gripping hard and bracing. With unwavering eye contact, Shiro pounds into your cunt using an unholy strength he tends to leave at the bedroom door. The way you stretch around him, how he punishes your cervix, makes spit catch in along your throat and your teeth clench until your jaw aches. It's a violence you need and it unhinges something new and frightening.

"Holy fucking shit," you hiss when he finds a new place, a new fleshy ring to fuck open. Your eyes widen in surprise and your mouth opens in a silent yell as the build  _aches_. "Shiro!"

You're not crying because the moment feels emotional, but tears still accumulate in your eyes and burn. A wicked hotness nails your channel on all sides, and you blink free tears, panting until the panting becomes another series of thoughtless yells you didn't know you could make.

"Let me pull out," Shiro warns, gruff and still abusing your hole.

The signature sound of skin smacking against skin is only amplified by the water. You try to focus, leave the special headspace he's put you in, but nothing will budge.

You fuck against him harder. "I can't."

Shiro looks at you in surprise, narrow and perceptive, but that short gaze dissolves into defeated bliss, a guttural sound that makes you want this to never end. He's about to come.

"Okay," he mutters, falling onto an elbow and jackhammering into you. "Okay."

He comes inside, and when you look at your arms that are wrapped around his neck, the skin gradually shifts from an almost imperceptible purple to a lavender glow.

"That's new," you say, breathless.

Post-sex leaves you two wrapped around one another in a hastily cleaned bed. Shiro is propped against a pillow wall, and your back is pressed to his chest. Together, you're scrolling through a tablet and loosely commenting on whatever Red Wing document slides past. Shiro dutifully reads, but while he does, occasionally leans in to kiss your temple or press his face against your throat. It takes you back to a time when life was different, but you savor it as a present thing.

You reach behind yourself and scratch what you can of Shiro's head. That terrible truth worms its way to the surface of your skin again.

You love him.

If there is one truth in this universe, then it's how much you love Shiro. As much as you've fought in the past years, you can firmly say you've done more fighting for each other than you've done fighting one another. To think, you once believed you could ever stop loving him.

While you love him, and while you are offensively careless in that regard, you're not an absolute idiot. Nothing about this love is promised. There's no stability, and it's cruel and gutting.

 _There'll come a day when this ends_ , you want to tell him.  _Nothing here is sustainable, so love me for every single day you told yourself you didn't during the past years and let me go._

If he cuts the cord, then where will you go? Who will you become?

Likely, a leader the Red Wing will love to hate, which is fine. Even at your best as the Black Paladin, you were never a conventional force, but will that be it? There has to be more to you.

This milk has been spilled for years, so it's not like you can cry over it anymore. You've tried recently, and well, it hasn't gotten you far.

You think about this more than you want to, but it makes sense. If there's one thing about life that never ceases to exist, then it's that constant forward motion where things change. Life moves on, but reconciling that with how Shiro feels like your home is a nightmare problem.

"Fuck me again," you murmur, almost too tired to speak.

Shiro doesn't refuse you, but so that you don't pass out, he helps you ride his lap. Hands leading your hips forward and back, it's a view you never get sick of. That harsh sensation of bottoming out on him, feeling him grind your cervix until it summons a soft coughing gasp, is the right kind of punishment to have by his hand. He gets it from you, too. Tonight is just yours in the cycle.

Your tentacles wind around his thighs as that taut string along your cunt walls grows more and more threadbare. You're groaning, but you laugh in disdain because the tentacles won't let go.

Out of breath with his head tilted back, Shiro smirks. "Strapped in and ready to go, co-pilot."

You clench your teeth, moaning. When you're finally able to speak, your voice is ragged from earlier shouting. He's inside you, drenched in glowing secretion, and he's making  _jokes._

"You feel so fucking good," you breathe, hips grinding faster and amplifying that wet collide. A small laugh interrupts your harsh breathing, and you lean back, gripping one of his thighs so he can watch himself disappear inside of you over and over. "God, Shiro."

"Close?" Shiro asks, eyes narrowed in on the shameless display. Against your will, your walls clench, attempt to milk Shiro. He groans hard and answers for himself. "Close. Yeah, close."

There's no salvaging the mood, so you go with it.

"T-minus 8 seconds," you manage, bouncing with enough force to make the in-ground bed shake. This is a moment for drunkenness, but you're incredibly sober. "8, 7, 6 –"

Shiro smacks your ass with his flat, bionic palm, and that shattering impact forces your face to rush with blood. The noise you make isn't human. It's a bubbling purr that shatters your ego like a fallen vase. Shiro smacks your ass again, and that merciless noise reappears but louder.

You stammer. "2, 1 –"

Shiro finishes for you, speaking hoarsely into a fist like ground-team on comm. "Blast off."

You hiccup on a laugh, making it even harder to breathe. "You're so lame, Shiro –  _oh_ , fuck. Fuck, fuck _, Shiro_!"

You curl over him, mouth opening into a shout that's muffled by the pillow above his head. Shiro doesn't stop fucking, lifting and dropping your hips and having the nerve to keep laughing as you keep fucking him. You want him to fill you up again, but also, maybe deck him.

"I think –" he begins, voice tight because he's close now. "That's what we call a success."

Sex with Shiro tends to be fog of fatigue and raw energy, but then there are these more lucid moments when it occurs to you this man isn't just your lover, but also, your best friend.

A lover and a best friend who can't spend the night.

Unless you're at Fleshpot, Shiro showers off in your bathroom while you linger in bed, too morose to bother cleaning the gunk off your tired tentacles. At first, this arrangement didn't bother you. It made sense, but as the weeks have crawled on, it's become excruciating, a kind of duplicity you know Shiro isn't intending.

Casual as ever, a musk free Shiro kisses you goodbye. His mouth doesn't linger long, but while it's there, the sensation is warm and makes your lips tingle. The horrible void returns.

"Clean your bed," he whispers against your mouth, smiling when you playfully shove him.

He leaves without casting a second glance over his shoulder. Shiro knows how to navigate you well. There can't be much space for thought or pondering. You become feral or too quiet.

God, he's a good lay, though. You luxuriate in that thought for a moment and ignore the itch to fuck yourself with your whole fist. After petting a tentacle and orgasming one more time, you take a second shower. The floor cleaning bot has already mopped up the mess from earlier.

You're your own god, which means you don't clean your bed. In fact, you do the exact opposite and gather the junk you shoved aside to make room for Shiro. As you carefully remake the very specific pile from before, you decide the mess isn't unhygienic. It's plush clutter that smells nice and helps you unwind after a long day wandering the Red Wing. You're not sure why Shiro couldn't relax on top of the pile with you, but to each his own, you guess. He's the one missing out on absolute comfort and peace of mind. Next time, you might explain yourself to him.

"Wait," you say after you finish sorting the bed. "What am I  _doing_?"

* * *

Whatever. It doesn't matter.

What does matter is whether or not you're going to take on the title as Galra emperor and stop the rebels in their tracks. It's a sharper alternative to a war, but you have a feeling no one is going to warmly welcome you and a cloned version of their temporary leader aka Sendak. There's so much else to do, anyway. Even with your quintessence extended life, time passes much too fast. You want to do everything at once. You want to be everywhere at once, but there's no possible way. You're learning you have to pick your battles in Balmera Palace.

"I have this idea," you say, walking backward in front of Shiro with a bag of Funyuns in hand. You're in the Red Wing and the sunsets are glaring down the chandelier, throwing pink fragmentary light across the white floor. "I think you're going to like it, too."

Shiro puts away the holographic tablet hovering above his arm. "Hit me with it."

With an inhale, you brace yourself for a lot of talking but consider it a vocal warm-up for the meeting you're about to enter.

"What if we start a program for displaced planets where we seek out uninhabited planets similar to the ones its population lost? That way, instead of trying to overpopulate New Altea as soon as possible, we give these people with specific needs and ecosystems the resources to govern themselves."

"That was always the plan," Shiro says, smile drifting as he thinks. "We're doing what we can now. It's hard to place people on planets until the map is at least halfway done."

This logic pisses you off. You fight a confrontational tone.

"The idealism we've got going here has to stop, Shiro." You cross your arms over your chest and the bag crinkles. "Look, I know Allura wants the map done, but the universe is infinitely expanding. It's a moot point. We have people dying waiting on housing right now. Basic science supports why we  _have_  to do this now. This planet's atmosphere can't accommodate an eighth of what some of these species need. There are too many moving parts to do the map first and then house the people. Something has to give, and New Altea isn't the answer."

"No one ever said it was," Shiro carefully answers, trying not to crush you. "I see what you're saying, but you're not the first to bring this to my attention."

You turn a corner and fall in line beside Shiro, heading for the high-security hallway with purposeful strides. Settling your arm on his shoulder, you sigh and yell in exasperation.

"I've been hopping planets for years. I know what's going on out there, and so does Lance. It's why we treat this place like it's a joke. It's out of touch. We fought a war, Shiro. You  _know_  that if people are scraping the barrel here on this privileged, wealthy planet overwhelmed by natural and artificial resources, then there are people dying everywhere else. Child prostitution, wage abuse, slavery; they're getting worse because people's skills are directly attached to their societies, and unfortunately, the common ground between societies tends to be harsh."

Shiro slips an arm around your waist and looks at the ceiling. "You know, Keith, for someone who doesn't know much about politics, you're a damn good politician."

You shrug, feigning aloofness and acting as if you haven't been studying for months. "Being a good politician is just having the people's priorities in order, not your own."

"Allura has massive backing for waiting on that map percentage. You're going to have to draft something convincing if you want the Red Wing to move in another direction."

"I have an idea," you say, already lifting your tablet and opening a message to Sendak. "You're not going to like it, but if you hear me out when the time comes, then you'll understand."

Shiro slows your joint walking. "That's not how things work here. You have to bring this to me and Allura in plain sight."

"Fine, but after the meeting," you say, pretending to compromise in hopes of Shiro forgetting. "It involves a lengthy explanation, and I don't want to mince words before the meeting."

Shiro plants his hand against the security scanner outside the boardroom door. The door slides open and you drop your arm from his shoulder as he removes his from your waist. While walking toward the war table, a headache blooms between your eyes, flexing its claws into your nervous system. The pain throbs, but you ignore the ache without changing expression. A headache is nothing new for you in the Red Wing. You open the notes on your tablet to review.

"Keith," Lance says, knocking his elbow against your ribs. Having him in the Red Wing has been an adjustment, but you don't mind now. He takes your chips. "How're you feeling?"

"Fine," you say, lying through your teeth.

"Sure, sure," he says and shoves a mouthful of Funyuns between his teeth. He doesn't look at you, clearly aggravated.

You attempt a playful smile to appease him. It comes out lopsided, a little more tired than you'd like. Lance arches an eyebrow, letting you know he's doubtful, and you exhale. You actually feel your ears fly back against your head. Across the table, you steal a glimpse of Pidge and Hunk who are standing side by side. Their eyes are trained on you and Lance.

"What do you want me to say?" you grumble, closing your notes.

It's Lance's turn to lie. His stare shifts to the side. "Not a damn thing."

Shiro whistles, redirecting the room's attention. You and Lance are left to hover around the edge of the war table, which is a blue holographic map of the galaxy you're focused on that evening.

"Alright, everyone." Shiro plants a hand on his hip and approaches the table. "Let's review the intel we've gathered from the demilitarized planets. Keith was able to upload the black box information from the Black Lion, meaning we've had the Marmora scouting his coordinates all week. Turns out the IAPP has every reason to pursue this as a threat to universal safety. We're still locating precise locations, but the quintessence levels we've detected are off the charts. Whatever's happening on these planets isn't good. As it stands, we can't directly connect this to rebel forces, but it wouldn't be wrong to assume there are threads."

Allura steps into place beside Shiro and lifts her gaze to the map, melancholic. "I don't understand how we overlooked this for eight years."

"Can we subpoena whole planets?" you ask, scrubbing your jaw. You notice something, answering your own question. "Shit. Some of these aren't a part of the IAPP yet."

"That's really convenient," Hunk mutters. "This galaxy isn't that far away. Shouldn't we be done sectioning them off into regions?"

You stop scrubbing and hold your chin. "They're not registered with us to be sectioned. A lot of the planets in this system are in the middle of negotiations with the IAPP."

Lance leans back on a single foot. "That's what I call transparent."

"Not necessarily," Shiro says, furrowing his brow in thought while his eyes scan the map connecting quintessence readings. "We're in the negotiation stage with some hundred plus planets right now. If I remember correctly, the only reason we've got a hold on Xaygawa and Veclite is that they want access to the Green Wing's agricultural network and we don't have a program for that kind of data sharing yet. We won't until maybe next New Altea year."

"That's what I'm saying, though," Lance continues. "If they're holding up their registration by bitching about some innocent back-burner issue, then they can fly under the radar."

"Pidge, Hunk," you say, opening your notes and typing. "How fast can we push that data sharing program? We need to narrow down every complaint these planets have and accommodate them so we can legally infiltrate their atmospheres as soon as possible."

"If you've already sent the Marmora after them, then why do you need to accommodate them?" Pidge asks, walking forward. "Finishing that program overnight would mean occupying people in the Green Wing who are elbow deep in significantly more important programming."

Allura lifts her hand to the map and spins it, zooming in on Veclite. "If they're registered under the IAPP while we investigate it means a lower chance for hostile responses."

You continue to scan the data you've collected for each planet. Concentrating on their negotiation statuses, your brain pieces together information that takes a couple seconds to weave into a fully realized idea. The others talk amongst themselves, but you continue to tune them out. The unregistered planets seem keen on having access to data, not physical resources like so many others. You suck your fangs and consider this, checking the dates on each program accessibility estimation. They're within weeks of each other. Before you can voice your discovery, your brain decides to clap with a lightning bolt of pain. You shout, unable to stop yourself.

Nose burning, you seize your temples and stumble back. A gamey taste flows from your throat and slips across your tongue. You gag, unable to acknowledge the concerned murmuring swelling around you. Lance grabs your shoulder and steadies you, but before you can habitually reassure him that you're fine, blood spurts from your nose, violent and merciless. Thick red races down your sputtering mouth like a river and then sprays the floor in front of you. You lift both hands to your nose, trying to stop the flow, but there's too much. You quickly retract your gloved hands and the black leather is gleaming, soaked in blood you rarely see fall from yourself.

"Keith," Lance says. "Holy fuck. He's white as a sheet. Someone get a medic in here!"

Shiro vaults the table, gracefully landing and striding for you. "Pidge, call Matt. Have Coran and him open a private medical room."

"Already on it, Shiro."

Shiro appears in front of you, and his hands capture both sides of your face as his grey eyes search your features, terrified. Lance says something, but your ears are ringing and you can't feel your hands or toes. Other than that, though, you feel normal enough to not be concerned. You know you're not dying, but for whatever reason, you're afraid something else might be.

"It's a nosebleed," you tell Shiro, keeping your voice low, trying to steady the man's panic in place of your own. "It's just a nosebleed."

"Alright, Monty Python and the Holy Grail!" Lance snaps, trying to urge you toward a chair with Shiro's help. "Shiro, warp him to the medical bay. There's something you need to know –"

"Lance!" you shout, heart rate hammering harder than it should. You try to lunge for him. Blood flings, and Shiro captures your waist.  _Now_  you're panicking. "Lance, shut the fuck up!"

You and Lance share a calculating glare you know will haunt the both of you for years to come. He steps back and gives you space. Gives you and Shiro space, actually.

"Keith," Shiro says, reproachful. "Whats going on?"

"Out of my way," Sendak says, appearing behind Shiro. "I'll take him."

Allura answers before you can. "No, you will  _not_."

Shiro drops his hands from your face and looks over his shoulder. His aggravation and insult bloom, but Sendak dismissively steps around him. You admit Sendak's presence breaks through the distress like the eye of a hurricane, but then he does the worst. Sendak captures you by the waist, and without your permission, lifts and drapes you over his shoulder like a sack.

"Hey!" you snap. "Put me down! I know how to walk!

He doesn't seem to mind the blood splashing down his back. Then again, you imagine he's the last person to be bothered by bloodshed. As you're carted away, he ignores Shiro's protest.

"This meeting is paramount, your highness. I'll see that Commander Keith makes it to the Green Wing. The three of us will reconvene later."

"I should go with him," Shiro says, stammering and trying to follow.

"Shiro," Allura counters, catching his elbow. "We need you here with us. As soon as we address the bullet points, we'll find Keith in the Green Wing. He's lucid. It's okay."

"Put me down," you murmur again, unable to look at your audience. "You've made your point."

Sendak ignores you and strides through the door. Only when the door is sealed shut does he speak. "You are going to make a decision."

Right. He thinks you're pregnant.

There are several ways to end up in a doctor's office, but this is pretty unorthodox. The walk to the Green Wing is long and quiet, but the quiet disperses when you enter the medical bay and its workers spot you and the blood on Sendak's IAPP suit. A scramble for Matt who is already on his way from the underground labs opens into chaos. It makes you wonder what must have happened when Shiro brought you in from the Blade of Marmora interrogation.

Matt appears before you in the lobby, out of breath and replying to the messages flooding his wristwatch. You're still sagged over Sendak's shoulder who has refused to let you down until you're in an examination room. Matt spots you, and you give him a thumbs up, smirking.

"No way! You do  _not_  get to greet me like that!" Matt says, on the brink of shrill. "Do you know what it's like to have Takashi Shirogane send you six messages that are thinly veiled threats about what might happen to you if so-and-so ends up dead? I thought you were  _dying_."

You rub your blood-clogged nose and sniff. "Yeah, well. Shiro can be kind of a drama king."

Sendak chuckles.

Matt strides past you and Sendak, wiping the sweat off his forehead. "I'm telling him you said that."

"Do it," you say dismissively and continue to wipe blood off your face. Something tells you you're only smearing it and making the mess worse. "While you're at it, tell him I'm fine and wanna return to the meeting after I've changed and washed my face."

"Not happening," Sendak says.

Sendak follows Matt through metal double doors. You watch them shut behind him and pay special attention to the series of locks that slide and click into place.

Once inside an examination room, Sendak plants you on the bed. He gives you a curt nod and turns over his shoulder, uninterested in whatever might come next. Eyes narrowing in thought, you leave your head and glance at Matt who has finally caught his breath.

He grabs a device that's a stethoscope equivalent but connected to a thin cord he plugs into his watch. He listens to your chest and back, discerning for a moment before humming.

"Sounds pretty normal."

"Because I'm normal."

"We'll see about that."

Matt snaps on gloves and grabs what you know are blood and urine kits from the nearby supplies shelves. Your heart clenches and you feel sweat accumulate along your hairline.

"So tell me what happened. Shiro said you were hemorrhaging, but that nosebleed looks like it's giving up. Unless you start convulsing, I think we're in the clear for a verbal assessment."

"I got a headache and then my nose exploded."

He glances up from the needle he's inspecting, incredulous. "There's no way the Red Wing would send you in here for a nosebleed, Keith. You've had your leg cut off. That would be an insult to you and them. The most Allura would've done is tell you to wash up."

"Right," you murmur and lower your eyes to the floor. The examination room reminds you of the ones back on Earth. Gripping the squishy edge of the bed, you decide you hate the sterile light. "It probably has something to do with how I haven't been handling my stress well lately."

"Balmera Palace will do that to you, but you're not the first stressed out Red Wing commander. Then again, I guess paladin health would be a priority. Anything else?"

A drawn-out pause follows as you consider what you should and shouldn't tell him. You clear your throat, and the quiet is suffocating, worse than any damp tropical heat.

"A lot of puking."

"Puking," Matt says, voice lilting. "Have you been following Galra dietary restrictions? They're different from human ones. You have to be careful."

You grumble, feeling like a child. "It's not that."

Matt gives you measuring stare, but when you attempt to make eye contact with him, he looks away and takes the band for restricting blood flow. He doesn't speak again until the band is tightly wrapped around your bicep and he's found an accessible vein.

"Your color is off, Keith."

"Color," you say with a knowing air, remembering Sendak's words from the Soller Gala. You eat the dead skin on your bottom lip and laugh. It's a dry, dry laugh. "Wouldn't be the first time I've changed under stress. Who knows? Maybe I'll turn even more Galra while I'm here."

For the first time in a long while, you recognize your own voice. It catches you off guard, and you card your fingers through your hanging bangs.

"I'm guessing it hasn't been easy coming back here," Matt carefully says. "I know it hasn't been easy for Shiro."

_Please, tell me he doesn't know._

If you're supposed to say something to that, then you fail the task. Anyway, you're tired of apologizing for existing at this point.

Matt finishes collecting the blood sample and leaves you to piss in the cup. When he has both bodily fluids in hand, he tells you tests run immediately and he should be back in ten minutes. The speed of Green Wing technology makes you miss Earth. You'd like an extra forty-five minutes to gather yourself and process how Shiro looked at your bloody face with dread.

Somehow, though, the estimated ten minutes last years, which sucks because Matt takes longer than ten minutes to return.

As more and more seconds sink, so does your heart. The only reason he isn't back is because he's found something terrible. Your brain clings to cancer because fatalism loves you. One human shouldn't be exposed to a hundredth of the radiation you've encountered in the last year alone, but surely, the Green Wing has decent oncological care. No one will let you die.

To pass the time, you wonder about quintessence and cancer statistics. It's kind of a downer, so you stop and pick at your nails, ignoring the messages on your watch.

The door whirrs open, startling you. You don't jump, though. Instead, your eyes expectantly flit to Matt who is wearing a solemn face. He doesn't look at you but focuses on the holographic tablet hovering above his watch, apparently reeling. Matt finally scratches his throat and hums.

"Usually, I like to ask people if they want the good news or bad news first, but honestly, I don't know what constitutes as good or bad here."

Your rapport with Matt has always been good, so you fight irritation for a sigh. "Just tell me what's wrong."

"I triple checked these results, so you're gonna have to take my word for this, but Keith –" Matt smacks his lips as if defrosting them up. "From the looks of it, you're pregnant."

_Son of a bitch._

It's not your fault you stutter. "Did I hear that right?"

"It's why that took a little longer than I said it would," Matt admits, reading the results again. "The lab wanted to be certain when they realized it was your chart.  _I_ wanted to be certain."

You're given a choice; lose your mind or act like an actual adult about the situation and ask to see the test results. Shoving a cork in your scream, you manage a stupid 'uhhh' and blink.

"Can I –" Stopping to let your heart palpitate, you clear your throat and continue to look at Matt in disbelief. "Can I see the results?"

Matt transfers the file to your watch with a single poke. The results pop up with a soft blip, and you promptly scan the vitamin and hormone levels until you reach a green box featuring abnormalities. 'Human chorionic gonadotropin' stares back at you, but the most telling part is Matt's rapidly drawn circle and accompanying note that reads 'placenta implantation hormone.'

"Oh," you whisper, expression relaxing into a different kind of shock, the settling sort that hums at a low frequency.

"We're going to have to consult the obstetrics department to better understand what that nosebleed meant, but if you're keeping it, I want to check the fetus heart rate now, Keith."

"Now," you say, still hushed.

You had to have known what was happening to your body. All signs pointed to it, and even Sendak warned you, but for some reason, you refused to acknowledge it to the point of detriment. All at once, you think about the substances you've been consuming, the relentless training alongside your team, and the unthinking lack of self-care. Nausea, not the morning sickness you've evidently been experiencing, rushes your throat. You've been hurting it, and you might've hurt it beyond repair because your head was impacted inside your asshole.

Matt closes his eyes. "If I thought there was even an hour of room for you to breathe here, then I'd give it to you, but your declining health on top of a pregnancy changes everything."

You slump over your knees and process. Tiles blur beneath your face, and you try to blink them into clarity.

"Can we get rid of it? I think I need to get rid of it, and I think I need to do it right  _now_."

Matt lifts his brow as if registering something. He clears his throat and turns off his watch, then locking the door and closing the distance between you both. He drops a hand onto your shoulder.

"We can do whatever you need to do," he promises, lowering his face to lock eyes. "But we need to play it smart. Right now, we don't know how the fetus is growing. If the shell is prematurely developing, then we'll have to remove it from your womb in one piece. That's a surgical procedure. Keith, I'll cover this up for you the best I can, but some tact is in order."

You hold back a meltdown by hissing through welded fangs. Running your hands through your hair, you fist the mane and tense.

People like you can't become parents.

"I'm going to run background checks on the obstetric department's best and see who we can trust to keep this as quiet as possible. The lab is already under a gag order."

Pushing your loose bangs off your face, you inhale until your lungs might pop and lean back to properly face Matt who's still holding you, still trying to be a supportive friend.

"The other Galra know," you whisper. "This could ruin everything, Matt."

Matt starts a syllable, but the word is interrupted by jars rattling on shelves. He opens his mouth to acknowledge the earthquake, but before he can, your watches emit piercing rings. Their screens turn crimson and pulse from red to white.

"We're under attack," Matt says, disbelieving.

The earthquake intensifies, sending glass jars off the shelves and colliding with the floor. One by one, the containers shatter into hundreds of shards.

You exchange grave expressions that prompt immediate action. You push off the table, ready to sprint, and Matt swiftly unlocks the door. You run for the nearest hall of windows that overlooks Alforis. Reaching it together, you both skid to a halt directly in the center and approach its glass.

Pressing your hand against the window, you leave behind a blood print. "What the hell is that?"

"There's no way that got through undetected," Matt says, eyes wide.

A black and purple ship as large as Voltron rushes across the city sky. The is ship is raven-shaped, swooping like a pissed off bird, and your guts churn when it collides with one of the city's tallest skyscrapers. Glass and matter combust into a thick cloud, and a bubble of fire follows, suddenly bursting and filling the sky with an immediate rainfall of flaming ash.

Without a pausing glitch, the ship turns to dust and tears through the building like a swarm of moths, effectively cutting it in two.

"The hangar," you say, turning to sprint. The blue crystals peppering the walls are now an angry red. "We're going to need the lions to fight that thing."

Matt races alongside you. "I already sent an alert to the crew."

For the first time outside of training, you open your brain to the other paladins. They're already shouting at one another from across the melding field, but Lance is the first person you hear.

"Why is Keith's wavelength all over the place?" he asks. "Keith, buddy! There you are!"

"Sorry about that. I'm on my way to the lion hangar. Has anyone gotten a reading on that thing? I just watched it collapse into dust and swarm downtown like a locust plague."

"No," Pidge says. "Nothing, and I mean nothing, should be able to infiltrate the shield Hunk and I built for this planet. I won't be able to scan something like that until we're on the field."

"Great," you think and glance at Matt who's in a video call with the hangar crew. "I'm sending an order out to Sendak and the Red Wing for backup. Is Allura here?"

"She went ahead to the south end of the Red Wing," Shiro says. "She's going there just in case. I don't think either one of us has a good feeling about this thing."

"We don't even know if we can form Voltron," Hunk points out. "I've been in Yellow once since we pulled her out of the alternate reality."

Frustrated, you spit a knee-jerk thought. "Putting them away was a mistake."

Shiro pulls aside your annoyance. "All in hindsight. Focus on what we  _can_ do."

He's right.

You need to center yourself, but considering your circumstances, that's a hell of a task. Everything, and you mean  _everything_ , is disintegrating before your eyes.

Get yourself together, but now, you don't know who you are to even take on that shape.

You're twenty-eight years old and you're the co-founder of an intergalactic alliance that has more or less turned you into a god. You're twenty-eight years old, and while you're an alien hybrid about to pilot a magical lion, you've never felt more human. You're twenty-eight years old, you're having an affair with a married man, and you're eight weeks pregnant.

Your name is Keith, and you're scared. Scared shitless. If you're being honest, then you felt less fear having your leg lopped off by a quintessence overloaded Lotor than finding out you're carrying human life. This is an abstraction. For two decades, you were an Earthling born male.

Nothing has prepared you for this. No socialization, no childhood game of house, no decent sex ed for humankind or the elusive Galra biology.

"Be careful," Matt warns as you part ways at the hangar door.

You and Lance run into the hangar at the same time. He lifts his hand for a high five, and you smack it only to both spin toward your armor.

"Should you even be allowed near a lion after that bloodfest?" Lance asks.

Shiro appears through a rip in time, and Pidge and Hunk ascend in the center of the room via a hidden elevator in the floor. They were in the underground labs doing God knows what.

"It was a nosebleed, Lance," you say, impatient. "Everything with Matt checked out."

"Anyway," Pidge says and yanks off her shirt. "It's not like we have much choice here."

Shiro glances at you, and you dismissively shrug.

"Pidge is right, Shiro."

He checks the messages on his watch, reads something that makes his mouth shift to the side but doesn't challenge you the way he wants to. Your watch beeps, and you read the message.

Sendak.

"Sendak sent out the first fleet. They're drawing it away from the city. From the looks of it, it might be organic and artificial. An armored creature even. We need to  _go_."

You finish changing with the others and only pause to read Sendak's reports. Shiro is at your side as you stride toward the lions who are lined up, regal and waiting for battle.

He stops you before you can climb inside Red's maw, capturing your shoulder and letting the others walk ahead. When everyone else has stepped inside a lion, Shiro grabs your hip and presses knuckles against your cheekbone. It's bold. It's way too bold with workers lingering.

"Did Matt find anything out?"

Another choice is presented to you, which is be honest and upfront right away or play your cards smart in hopes of winning the day. As a commander, you know what you have to do.

"Everything checked out." You gingerly punch his shoulder, knowing you must look like a disaster with blood dried on your face and throat. "But you should come with me to the medical bay for a follow-up. I'd like a little support there. Never been good with doctors."

"Couldn't even get you in the nurse's office at the Garrison," Shiro says, fondly remembering.

You wink. "Some things don't change."

Lifting your fist, you give him an expectant look. Shiro laughs and knocks his fist against yours, letting his hand fall from your face. He looks at you with fleeting admiration, and you don't want that to go away, but the clock is ticking. Everything will end after this battle. You know it will.

"I love you," you tell him.

"I love you," Shiro promises and turns his communicator on. "Let's go save our planet."

Red welcomes you with a flashing glint in her yellow eyes. As if you never stopped climbing into her chair, you stride up the ramp to the cockpit and attempt to shed the past seven years.

Pathway lights follow you down the shallow hall. When the cockpit door jets open, you're greeted by a room of glowing red. You take a seat, crack your knuckles, and close your eyes. The hangar doors have lifted, windows to a world you thought you laid to rest years and years ago.

Paladins or Defenders of the Universe has always had a nice ring to it. You loved painting the town red with Lance as a bounty hunter, and in reality, it's better suited for who you are, but it isn't the apex of your capabilities. You know this, and so does everyone else. Throughout the years you've heard strange incomplete rumors about who you are and what you do, but the ones that always stuck with you were the ones that referred to you as a waste of something great.

Red evaluates your vitals, and your heart is hammering, creating a dangerous mountain range, but it's to be expected. A treacherous battle is out there, waiting, and that stacked on top of the fact something with its own heartbeat is swimming inside your guts, depending on you, could only be hard on the nerves. Already something is wrong with you, and you can't imagine the g-force found in the Red Lion's harum-scarum aptitude being good on any uterus-like contraption.

Maybe this fight will solve more than one problem. God knows you're not fit to be a parent, and it's not like Shiro would ever love you more than the universe and leave Allura.

Thrusters on, ground-control ready, and Matt's voice crackles through the communicators. Air traffic has been cleared, meaning it's all on you, the Paladins of Voltron.

Your hands fall onto the steering sticks, and you thrust them forward, grinding teeth and barely registering what the others are talking about as Red races ahead. She reaches the edge and ascends with an upward curve. The force sends your organs hurdling toward your spine, and you gnash fangs, fighting a rage that has less to do with the monster than you want to admit.

All for the universe or nothing.

"It's directly outside the south end of the city," Shiro says and shares the coordinates. "Let's try luring it and taking this fight to the exosphere."

Pidge's face appears on your screen. "So I figured out how the thing got through. Turns out it's breaking down on a molecular level. I'm guessing it used molecular vibration to pass through the barrier, which isn't that impressive until you consider its size and how it can reconstruct itself."

"Isn't that what the Flash does?" Lance asks. "That's how he's able to rip out people's hearts. He moves so fast he shifts through other people's molecules."

Pidge rolls her eyes. "Yeah, Lance. More or less."

"So all we have to do is keep its molecules from shaking," you say, eyes forward. "Doesn't sound hard. We have Lance's ice canon."

Hunk's voice interrupts your simpleton thinking. "Doesn't sound hard until you consider it could pass through our lions and kill us."

"We don't know if it can do that," Lance says. "Don't freak yourself out yet."

Shiro exhales and Black appears beside you. "That's not a risk I'm interested in taking. Stay on the alert. Keep your distance if it disperses."

You're not even outside Alforis when you spot the creature, swooping after fighter pilots and devouring them like insects. You wince, wonder if Sendak is holding his own, and decide the robeast is too agile to be like a raven. It's more like a crane that jerks and curves with a speed you haven't seen since Lotor's double axis ship.

"Keith," Shiro says, voice soft in that revealing, tender way everyone is used to. "You're the only one fast enough to build distance between it and your lion after a direct hit. I want you to agitate it. Once it's irritated and on your trail, keep it occupied until you're far from the city."

"Got it."

You careen toward the monster, and the world whips past in a way you've grieved. Any ship you used while working with Lance couldn't compare to the sheer power of Red, and a nostalgia, unlike anything you've experienced since returning rocks your bruised heart like a new baby.

A baby.

You're pregnant with Shiro's baby.

The thought rattles your skull like thunder, but you regain as much focus as you can and send Red rocketing toward the enemy. The bird is distracted by other ships when you collide with its rib cage, and the sheer force you used knocks your teeth together. Ignoring the sharp ache seeping from your neck, you steer Red forward, making her run along the ship's side before wrenching back your arms and sending her upward, panting from exertion and anxiety.

There's a difference between wants and needs, and you don't need a goddamn baby right now when you can't keep your shit together on the day to day. Too bad that's never the rhetoric people use when they're talking about these ethics. They always use the word 'want.'

So, what the fuck do you  _want_ , Keith?

Do you want this baby? Do you want it whether or not it's going to make your sky fall? Everything will open beneath your feet and send you straight toward the molten core of it.

Shiro would never claim it, and not because he doesn't want to, but because he knows the difference between a want and a need. He wanted this with you once upon a time, but this isn't a fairytale. This is real life, and this decision will paint someone else's life forever. Likely, the child would resent you, and upon finding out its lineage, despise Shiro for the wrong reasons.

Anyway, what do you know about parenting? You spent most of your life in and out of homes before hitting the adoption expiration date. You stopped being cute. You got mean as hell.

You're still mean as hell, but in a well-meaning way. If there's one thing you've got, then it's a lot of heart, but no one gets to see that anymore outside your desperation for a time long gone. Presently, you want someone to know you. You want to give someone your heart in a way that's beyond aching romances and the impersonal duty to a universe that hardly loves you back.

Shiro yells praises your way, but you don't hear him.

Keeping a close watch on your rear cameras, you take a moment to glance over the green and pink beauty that's New Altea. Along its curvature, you see the black above but the sunsets and sunrises creeping past. It's the first time you've been off-planet in months, and you can tell.

Clearing your throat, you tighten your grip on the steering sticks and fight the tears burning your eyes with a headshake. Crying isn't your style, and you're not even sure what you're sad about.

Saying 'everything' would be a generalization, but maybe that's just it. Everything has gone to shit, and even when it's good, it's riding on the back of something fucked. Shiro doesn't talk about it much, but surely he feels the painful aftershock just as much if not more. If you wanted to, then you could run away tomorrow and never come back, but Shiro has people on New Altea.

Shiro can't run away. He's a prisoner all over again, and that's your fault.

"It's pulling apart!" Lance shouts.

"Doesn't look like it's staying dust either," Hunk observes, and you watch Yellow swerve to your right. You whip Red around to get a better look at what's happening. "Is it making babies?"

The enemy ship has turned to dust and it's separated into five individual clouds that are growing dense. You rear back, preparing yourself. Just in time, too. The clouds collapse into miniature versions of itself, and you don't hesitate to barrel forward. You gun through dark space and slam the Red Bayard into its port. You turn it over and dig your thumb into a button on your right steering stick. The Red Lion's jaw unhinges, and she blasts molten fire against the chick.

Your chest burns, and suddenly, you realize you're sobbing.

The sob is hidden behind stitched lips, but the occasional breathy gasp escapes. You lift your glasses on top of your head and mop up the mess. If you're too concerned about the others hearing you, then you'll never focus on the task at hand, which is amplifying into a major battle. Around you, your friends are struggling to outrun their birds enough to land attacks.

"We're going to have to prompt it to meld back together!" Hunk shouts. "That way Lance and Keith can freeze and heat in one go molecules."

"We're going to have to form Voltron," Shiro says.

There's no way, and you know there's no way.

You don't mean there's no way to form Voltron. You mean there's no way you can have this baby without Shiro even though you do want it. If you didn't want it, then you wouldn't be melting down during a fight that matters more than you do as a single fucked up person.

Then again, whether or not Shiro would be there, you would be there. That's more than anything you had while growing up. One parent would've been a dream come true.

You want this baby.

A baby would change everything, but maybe that's what you need. Not for a baby to fix you, but for a respectable focus to change everything.

You  _want_ this baby.

Lance's voice rattles your eardrums. " _Gatito_ , do you copy?"

"The transmission is fuzzing out," you lie, again. "Repeat that."

"He's not focused enough to do this," Lance says to who you guess is Shiro. "We're not forming Voltron with him like this."

You snap before you can stop yourself. "I'm fine, Lance! Form Voltro –"

As if entering a radiation field, Red's cockpit goes dark. You sit up in your seat and jerk your steering sticks forward and back, but they've locked into place.

Shiro's voice is strained by his battle. "Keith, what's wrong?"

Your fingers fly across the keyboard, entering every recovery code you remember. "Red's offline. I don't know what happened. It's like something pulled the plug."

"Pidge," Shiro says.

She shouts, and through the windshield, you watch the Green Lion roll while being pecked by the miniature beast. "I'm kind of busy right now, Shiro! Keith, override! Use override!"

Your miniature beast is circling you like a vulture, aware of your stunted situation. You use her override codes, entering them again and again and swearing each time you fumble.

"Fuck," you whisper, the word thick from earlier crying. " _Fuck_."

Reeling away from panic, you catch your breath and keep an eye on the beast. You have to get Red back online. Without her, then you're doomed. Lance can't freeze the molecules alone, and while he might get some of them to slow down for a bit, they'll unthaw and attack again.

"Red," you say, tone careful. "Red, what do you need? Help me out here, buddy."

A screen pops up above your keyboard. Your vitals stare back at you. Being forced to watch your own hammering heart rate crawl across the screen feels a little condescending even for Red, and you purse your lips. You squeeze the handles, growl, and clear the phlegm from your throat.

"That's not telling me anything. Try again."

Beneath your heartbeat, a second line fades in. After a confused stare, you realize it's another heartbeat. It's a heartbeat, and it's a horribly faint one. You give yourself a second to examine it, but your eyes gradually grow bigger as something settles over you like a dying dust storm.

_Help yourself. Help it._

"Shiro," you say, staring at the heart rate. "Shiro!"

"Keith, what's wrong? Keith!"

"Shiro, you have to get me out of Red!" you yell, already preparing to eject yourself. "We have to fight this thing another way!"

"Guys!" Hunk shouts. "I know we're upset, but birdy is doing her thing over there!"

You watch the miniature birds fly toward one another and collide. The impact creates a hell of an explosion, and from the ball of fire, the larger bird appears. You shove your steering handles as hard as you can and then attempt to yank them back. If you leave your ship, then you're no better than a worm in the dirt, but if you stay inside, you could be pecked to death.

"Let me pilot!" you scream at Red. "Or we'll both die!"

"Keith," Lance says. His syllables waver. "What did Matt tell you in the Green Wing?"

"It's going after the Red Lion!" Pidge shouts. "Keith, move!"

"I can't move!"

You watch the second heartbeat slow again, and while you know better than to believe in any kind of god, you lift an emotional middle finger to whatever calamity decided to make living a thing. Right there, you make a vow. If you and the baby make it out okay, then you will get your shit together, and you will let the past sit outside the front door of the rest of your life.

There is more to life than this. You are  _better_  than this.

The beast is spinning and coming for you like a torpedo. You know that if you don't eject yourself at the appropriate time, then you're both dead.

Fuck death, though. Fuck dying. Fuck being a piss poor person.

The team vitals blink, and you have a split-second to realize Black has also gone offline. That means you are alone in this. Shiro might not know until the autopsy if there even is a body.

You reach to slam your hand on the eject button but are side swept by a blast of blinding purple light. The heat it emits is suffocating, and you squeeze your eyes shut to grit and bear it, blindly hunting for that button again. In what presents itself as impenetrable light, a hand seizes your bicep. It jerks you toward a chest, and you're lifted from the chair. You and whoever is holding you lurch deeper into the magenta fog. As the fog passes, distant metal crunches and screeches.

The light melts away and heat changes to climate controlled tepidness. Suddenly, you're in the Black Lion cockpit, still being carried like the damsel in distress.

Black's lights pop on.

"Allura!" Shiro shouts, striding toward his chair. You realize what he did. He used his warping method to save your ass. "Use the White Lion canon!"

Damsel in distress or not, you suppose Shiro does owe you one or six.

"Shiro, are you sure?" Allura calls back. You see her on the screen in her battle suit. "We're not sure if it'll work properly. It's an all or nothing decision we cannot take lightly."

"We can't form Voltron and Red just got taken out. Under different circumstances, I'd have you pilot Blue and Lance pilot Red, but Red is offline."

"Shiro, do you really think we should risk our city –"

Shiro tenses. You feel every muscle harden. "Allura, we already have a casualty number, and it's going to keep growing if we don't stop this."

"Wait, Shiro. Is that Keith?" she asks. "Shiro, what is going on?"

"I don't know," Shiro answers in earnest. He sets you down on the cockpit floor, and you try to stand, but your thighs are locked. When your abdomen cramps, you panic. You need to tell Shiro, but he's talking to his wife. "Allura, listen to me. This is an order, and I will bring it to the Red Wing's attention if you ignore me. It's our one option."

She looks at you, and you see the fear in her eyes. After a cold pause, she nods. "Engaging White Lion canon. Everyone, return to the lion hangar."

Her screen disappears and Shiro rips off his glasses, then taking yours and tossing them aside. He kneels beside you, and when he grabs both sides of your face, you cling to his wrists.

"Knock me out," you order through clenched teeth, hardened on the choice. "Knock me out so the stress stops. The higher my stress levels are, the more at risk I am."

"At risk for  _what_?"

Behind you is the first-aid kit. You smack the panel and the door pops open, revealing a box. You reach for its corner, and it tumbles out, expelling its contents. Afraid to move anymore, you clumsily paw through the multiple tubes for the syringe gun, reading their Altean labels.

"We can't have this conversation right now. You need to pilot us back to New Altea. As soon as we land, I want you to get me to the Green Wing. Only let Pidge or Matt examine me."

Shiro checks the screen again. The White Lion readings appear, and the countdown follows, already ticking. You know he's too smart to let his emotions navigate this moment.

You find the vial you're looking for and rip the package open with your teeth. You double check its label to be absolutely sure and then insert the drug into the blue gun with a slam. Breathless, your cramps intensify, making you groan low. Eyes never leaving the gun, you wait for the vial to align with the barrel and give you its telling mechanical whirr and locking click.

"What are you doing?" Shiro snaps. "Keith, talk to me!"

You slam the gun against your throat and pull the trigger. Giving him eye contact, you hiss when the needle buries itself in your neck.

"Knocking myself the fuck out."

* * *

Irony is so inopportune.

You spend seven years avoiding hospitals, not landing yourself in one even once, and then somehow, by returning to likely the safest place in the galaxy, you find yourself in the Green Wing medical bay, not once but twice. Both visits happening in under six months, too.

This time it's a little different.

For starters, when you wake up, you don't feel like you've been in a coma. The fatigue is more along the lines of a nap that got too warm. You're sweaty, but there's no headache or charred hairs, which you guess should be considered an improvement. Another thing is that there's no Shiro or Lance brooding on opposite ends of the hospital room after a cockfight.

There's only Pidge, but unlike before, she's not engaging with her typical bedside manner where she's hands off and professionally protective. Pidge is seated on a stool with her elbows propped up on your mattress and fingers steepled. She's staring off into space, and you know that face well. She's contemplating, processing what you guess is the strenuous date input you gave her.

"How long have I been out?"

Pidge doesn't look at you. "About six hours."

You press a palm against the bed and use it as leverage to sit upright, grunting. While your mind is fairly alert, your body feels like it's strapped down by several bags of bricks.

"I need to talk to Matt," you say and unsteadily reach for the pitcher of water.

"He's overseeing civilian injuries on the opposite end of the city." Pidge pushes herself back and clears her throat. "I have your chart from earlier, Keith. You're in good hands with me."

"How's the city?"

"Allura neutralized the monster with the White Lion canon."

"Damn," you whisper. "We had to go that far? That's not good."

Only when you set the pitcher back down does she look at you. In that look, you see something you never wanted to unearth in Pidge. She's disappointed, but mostly, sad.

"How long have you known?" Pidge asks.

This is a loaded question. It's something she can pass judgment on, but you don't blame her for wanting to know if her best friend has lost all semblance of morality.

"I wasn't sure until today," you admit.

This pacifies her, but not by a lot. Pidge glances at the pitcher and nods. "You need to be drinking that. Saline solution or not."

"Is it okay?" you ask, hands gripping the fitted sheet.

Pidge licks her front teeth and sucks them before letting her mouth pop open in a short sigh. A second passes, and she rises to her feet. Pidge pours your water and gathers her thoughts.

"Do you know what a chemokine is?"

Now isn't the time to play smart. "No."

"A chemokine is a signaling protein. At the sight of inflammation, it recruits T-cells as a part of an immune response. When a human is pregnant, the chemokine shuts off inside the tissue that surrounds the fetus. It's how humans carry to term without the body confusing the fetus for an infection."

"Pidge," you begin like a warning. You repeat yourself with cutting inflection. "Is it okay?"

"We've stabilized you both, but the human end of your MHC proteins are rejecting the fetus." She closes her eyes and massages a temple. "Your entire body is an amalgamation of misplaced proteins and it's causing the cells that separate your immune system from the baby, the syncytiotrophoblasts, to do a half-assed job. I have people working on it, but we can't do much until you give us a full pelvic exam, which obviously, we couldn't do until you woke up."

Your heart lunges, but you don't react. "Help me here. Talk in survival percentages."

"As it stands, you have a 36% chance of reaching full-term, but that percentage should go up significantly if we can get you to the encasing stage. Once an egg, it'll protect itself."

"An egg," you repeat, breathing in. "Galra give birth to eggs."

"One egg, and it's soft-shelled like a big maggot, but yeah." She shifts her smile to the side. "You really needed some Galra sex ed from all ends, didn't you?"

While this is a lot to ingest, you do have priorities. "Pidge, where are the others?"

"Aside from Shiro, waiting in the lobby for you to tell them what's going on. Everyone was worried. They thought the robeast entered your system."

You shift forward. "What do you mean by  _aside from Shiro_?"

"He knows, Keith. He asked what was going on, and since he's on your HIPAA, I was under the impression he was the one person I  _could_  consult."

Scooting forward even more, you think to throw your legs over the side of the bed and run to him but remember you're in a high-risk situation. "Where is he?"

"In the lobby with the others."

Probably because being in the presence of others would help him refrain from having a meltdown. You eye the door, register your shaking hands, and know what has to be done.

"Can you go get him for me, and when he comes in here, make sure the door stays locked?"

"Keith, do you have a plan?" She exhales, exhausted by you and the fight. "Other than eating your bodyweight in Funyuns, I mean."

"Haven't had much time to think about a birth plan."

Pidge inhales, not bothering to hide her shock. "You're keeping it?"

That pisses you off, and while you don't want to dig into your best friend, you don't hesitate to lean forward and give her a dark, unflinching stare that means you're being real.

"I'm a twenty-eight-year-old not-god with an inconceivable amount of cash and influence. If I can cut off Lotor's head, then I think I can handle whatever this kid might bring."

Clearly not a good enough reason, Pidge turns over her shoulder and jogs toward the door. "I'm getting Shiro."

That's the adult version of tattling if you've ever seen it.

The door slams shut behind her and you flop back against your pillow mountain. Gentle loneliness pats against you like rainfall. Reaching down, you want to touch your stomach, but something about it feels performative. It's what people do in media, but there could be a reason for it. After all, sometimes the cliché is just the mundanity of humankind.

When the door opens again, Shiro is alone, shoulders back and lips sinking. Even the guards have been posted far away for the sake of privacy, and you wonder if the two of you could be any more conspicuous? Having a baby seems to be the candidate to push the envelope.

Shiro steps inside the room and the green lighting from the floor lamps wash over him, painting him like one of the post-impressionist pieces you studied in high school. Shiro inhales and looks you over, unapologetically letting his eyes fall to your stomach. He lifts his brow, clearing his throat, but when you expect him to speak, he doesn't.

It's your turn to break the silence.

"Pidge shouldn't have been the one to tell you."

He tilts his head more as if inclined to agree but wearily sighs. The effort to be condescending is a lot for him even on a good day. Shiro walks deeper into the hospital room and shifts his jaw.

"We weren't being careful," he says. It's then you notice his eyes are red-rimmed. He's been crying, which makes your stomach swan dive into a rocky trench. "I'm sorry, Keith."

You laugh, but if an open wound could sing, you imagine that's what it would sound like. "It takes two to tango."

His eyes crawl from your stomach to your face. "I won't lie and tell you I know the best way to approach this. This one is out of my hands until you tell me what you're planning to do here."

Better to be blunt than kind in situations like these, but even with that in mind, you don't hear yourself speak when the words melt from your teeth and drip.

"I'm keeping it, so there you go. You can use your hands again."

You're smiling in the unhappiest way. Shiro doesn't react aside from a sideways glance, but that's what you expected from him. He's walled off even when it matters the most.

"Have you talked to Pidge? Do you know the risks?"

"Yeah," you answer, simple but soft. "I know."

Shiro lowers himself onto the mattress, hands clasped between his knees and eyes trained on the floor. He licks his upper lip and lifts a hand to wipe his mouth.

"If you lose anything else because of me –"

"If I lose it, then that's biology, not sentimentality. Shiro, this is the start of me letting myself have something I want. I'm making this decision and raising it with or without you."

"That's presumptuous. I'm here, Keith, but people start doing what you're doing with puppies, not children. Your life's on the line, too. One bad infection, and you could be gone."

You hear that unspoken sentence: I could lose you.

"There's greater risk using Voltron."

"That's different. You're doing something for everyone when you put on your paladin armor. This is a –"

"A personal risk. Something I've never let myself have."

He drops his hands and his jaw twitches. "You're romanticizing. Children aren't meant to prove a point. They're people."

"Shiro, I'm not romanticizing," you say, unyielding. "When have I let myself have something other than you? Even after I left, all I could think about was how everything we built was ruined, so I had to do better, give more because what else did we deserve? But I can't keep hating myself for what I did after going to the gala and seeing the good it's done. I'm not going to atone for that anymore. I have atoned for it. If I want something that's selfish and for me, then I get to have it. If that means leaving this place, this cushy job and you, then fine. I can and will leave."

"I never wanted you to hate yourself." Shiro drags his hands down his throat, fighting back frustration. "You left because you were angry we had to do what you signed us up for. I rightfully wasn't happy it happened without a discussion or even an attempt at a negotiation. Just because you've made peace with what happened doesn't mean you get to take my kid and run."

"Yours," you say.

You're not being malicious, though. You grab his bicep and cling. Shiro has always been your anchor and now isn't any different. Continuing your thought, you guard your heart.

"Give me an example of how you'd be in its life. A fair example. An example that wouldn't pin your children against each other as enemies or make it hate us both."

"We have time to figure that out." He gently takes your face and slides his fingers beneath your chin. Even though he's clamoring, you look him in the eye and let yourself see him as a man who's hurting in the worst way. "Don't let this place take you away from me again. I'm begging you not to go the exact way I should have begged you years ago."

"Allura will find out. This baby is three-fourths human. It's going to be more human than I am and half-Japanese. I couldn't pin this on anyone else even if I wanted to."

Shiro swallows but doesn't let you go.

"I can't let you leave," he whispers, and he's achingly true. "Years lying to myself, Keith. I've spent years with a woman I love as a best friend, a comrade, and a fellow paladin lying about how I view our relationship to the point I now have a son with her. I don't think I can go back to that. Whether or not you stay, something will give, and when that happens, I'd rather have you here with me than have to chase you across the universe afterward."

Ice water, a regular tilted cooler, washes over you as something terrible registers. You open your mouth in disbelief and struggle to word the realization.

"If this had never happened would you have expected me to be your paramour until I died?"

He drops his hand. "Don't make it sound the way you're trying to because you want to cut me out. It'll make it easier if you can hate me. I know how you work."

You grab the front of his shirt and jerk him close. He fights his reflexes and carefully sets his hands on your biceps.

"I always knew there was an expiration date. Do you think I'm the type who would act like a manic bitch because I was so jealous I couldn't contain myself? Shiro, it was because I knew you'd disappear again. Things like this don't last. We would have fallen apart, and how many times am I supposed to lose you and act like a sane, rational person?"

"Keith, please. You can't get upset after what we found out today. You don't need a miscarriage," Shiro grabs your hip to soothe you, but it makes you want to deck him.

Rather than let him go, you tighten your grip.

"Don't use my baby as a scapegoat, Takashi. I'm your best friend. I'm your partner. I'm your lover, but I'm also a person. Screw you for thinking I would spend the next hundred years rolling over and sneaking around without letting myself find someone to love or have a family with."

"That's what you did to me."

"I was an idealistic  _child_ ," you say with your distinct gravel. "We're adults, and now, we know better. Pretty obviously if you ask me. It's almost been a decade. These grudges can't last if I plan on having this kid and letting it know your name."

Shiro's mouth is a thin line. "You've always known where to hit the hardest."

"Yeah, well, who taught me my technique?"

The ball is in his court, but Shiro takes his time with it, tossing it in the air and catching again and again while you sit there and wait for the pass.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Ideally, leave your wife and move into my bedroom so that I don't have to sleep alone during this entire pregnancy. That's gonna really suck. Galra nest with their mates, remember?"

Shiro grips his bridge and massages. He doesn't bother hiding his exasperated grunt.

"Easier said than done," you add but only after letting him suffer in contemplation. "I'm not irrational. Might have screwy methods, but I know when something is impossible at the moment."

"At the moment," Shiro repeats, closing his eyes and squeezing.

"We get through this war scare, and then get ourselves out from underneath the red tape."

"Wars can last years. Lifetimes."

You free him from your talons and lean back against the pillows. Averting your eyes, you subconsciously slide a hand over your stomach and take a moment to think. With this, you need to be quick on your feet, emotionally lithe and willing to compromise without shuttering off your dignity. This is a child, not a secret to sweep under the rug until its dirt pile becomes too obvious. You're not ashamed of it, and you'll disembowel anyone who tries to make you resent it.

"Trust me, Shiro. I won't let it last a lifetime."

"This means we're going to have to keep our distance from one another," Shiro reminds you. He's not saying it to be avoidant. Ultimately, he's right.

"That's probably for the best. We need to –" Emptying your throat, you exhale. "We need to figure some things out on our own. When I announce this, you can't be with me."

Shiro averts his eyes and threads of jealousy weave across his face. "What are you going to say when people ask who the father is?"

You don't know if Shiro will leave Allura. Accustomed to these things never working out as planned, you don't count your chickens before they can hatch. Shiro can think you're planning your life around him, but you have a title to claim and a future prince or princess to consider.

"I'm the father." Your words are a blade on the butcher block. "That's more than enough."


End file.
